AnnouncementTotal 54 articles, created at 2016-05-03 06:02

(2.00/3)

1 EMC World: Tucci Passes Torch To DellEMC Chairman and CEO Joe Tucci used his keynote speech to set the stage for massivechanges at EMC, preparing for the digital revolution and the company's becoming a partof the new Dell Technologies. 2016-05-02 15:42 2KB www.crn.com

(1.00/3)

2 NVIDIA & Samsung Settle All Patent Infringement DisputesRoughly a year and a half ago, NVIDIA opened up a patent infringement case againstSamsung and Qualcomm , claiming that the various... 2016-05-02 20:15 2KBwww.anandtech.com

(1.00/3)

3 Nadella explains why Microsoft sued the U. S. governmentMicrosoft CEO Satya Nadella explained in an interview that Microsoft is fighting what itsees as government overreach in the realm of digital privacy because he thinks that theU. S. can be a beacon to other countries. 2016-05-02 17:26 2KB www.computerworld.com

(1.00/3)

4 Can Oracle buy its way into the cloud?It wasn't so long ago that Oracle dismissed cloud computing as "gibberish. " Today, it'ssinging a different tune. 2016-05-02 16:56 5KB www.itworld.com

(1.00/3)

5 U. S. uncovers $20 million H-1B fraud schemePrison time is possible in visa-for-sale case, say feds 2016-05-02 14:28 2KBwww.infoworld.com

(1.00/3)

6 Oracle pays $532 million to snatch up another cloud serviceproviderOracle on Monday announced that it is paying $532 million to buy Opower, a provider ofcloud services to the utilities industry. 2016-05-02 12:25 2KB www.computerworld.com

(1.00/3)

7 OpenAI Gym’s free toolkit, Microsoft SQL Server 2016, andWindows 95 installed on Apple Watch— news digest: May 2,2016The OpenAI Gym offers developers a free toolkit for training their artificial intelligence;Microsoft SQL Server 2016 will be available in June 2016-05-02 12:20 3KB sdtimes.com

(1.00/3)

8 This is the real Bitcoin creator!Craig Wright, an Australian entrepreneur has publicly identified himself as Bitcoin creatorSatoshi Nakamoto, bringing an end to the speculation about who came up with theoriginal ideas underlying the digital cash system. Craig has provided technical proof toback up his claim using coins known to be... 2016-05-02 10:01 1KB pctechmag.com

9 2016 Big Data 100: 20 Coolest Platform And Tools VendorsPart 2 of CRN's Big Data 100 looks at the best of the best in the big data platforms, tools,infrastructure and services space. 2016-05-03 00:20 1KB www.crn.com

10 ID15 concept car interior: The future of not-drivingAutonomous driving will fundamentally change how we interact with the inside of our cars.Yanfeng Automotive Interiors is behind the interior technology in many of today's cars,and with the Innovation Demonstrator 2015 concept car (ID15) we got a sneak peek andjust what they... 2016-05-03 03:37 887Bytes www.cnet.com

11 Nvidia 365.10 drivers are Game Ready for MOBAs andForza ApexVariations on MOBA games are everywhere these days. There's Blizzard's Overwatch ,Epic's Paragon , and 2K's Battleborn... 2016-05-03 00:01 1KB techreport.com

12 EMC reveals quest to modernise the data centre at EMCWorld 2016New technology will help IT departments wring most efficiency from existing infrastructurewhile investing in the new 2016-05-03 00:00 2KB www.itpro.co.uk

13 Data Privancy in the cloud: Five current issues incomplianceCloud computing has revolutionized how people live and work; however, at the same timeIT professionals must now navigate new potential risks, 2016-05-02 20:13 1KBwww.itworldcanada.com

14 Capital One: Think Like A Designer, Work Like A StartupThe creation of Capital One Wallet is an example of how a large financial services ITorganization can move like a startup and think like a design firm, transforming businessexpectations in the process. Their work earned them the No. 1 spot in the 2016InformationWeek Elite 100. 2016-05-02 20:07 5KB www.informationweek.com

15 The Weather Company Brings Together Forecasting AndIoTThe Weather Company estimates that weather is perhaps the single largest externalfactor affecting business performance, to the tune of nearly $1 trillion lost annually in theUS alone. Combining weather data with business data can improve decision-making for awide range of companies. The... 2016-05-02 20:04 9KB www.informationweek.com

16 Horizon Prioritizes Data And Patient ExperienceHorizon Blue Cross Blue Shield Of New Jersey implemented a fee-for-value healthcaredelivery model that uses new technologies to gather data and improve memberexperience. More than 80 business processes were created or modified, transformingsystems for enrollment, claims processing, billing, customer service... 2016-05-02 20:0110KB www.informationweek.com

17 Penn Medicine: Using Data To Save Patient LivesPenn Signals is a system that uses existing data from electronic health records toperform real time predictive analysis of heart failure patients. The goal? Penn Medicinewanted to place patients in proper risk groups and assign them to cardiology resourcesin order to get them the best... 2016-05-02 19:57 9KB www.informationweek.com

18 FedEx Services Eases The Pain Of Customs ClearanceDisparate internal systems and a complex customs environment were slowing down theimport/export process for business customers. So FedEx Services launched theClearance Customer Profile app to help businesses overcome customs clearancehurdles. The company's efforts earned it the No. 5 spot in the 2016 InformationWeekElite 100. 2016-05-02 19:54 7KB www.informationweek.com

19 Google Acquires Synergese, A Virtual Coach For AppsUsersThe tech giant will integrate the startup's customer education technology into Apps as afree feature for all users. 2016-05-02 19:45 2KB www.crn.com

20 Qlik Moves To Expand Partner Program Beyond LicenseSales To Include Services, Subscription RevenueAs Qlik strives to become a business analytics platform player, the company looks tobroaden the opportunities for its 1,700 channel partners with new specializations andservice offerings. 2016-05-02 19:39 3KB www.crn.com

21 Intel's Atom architecture to live on despite smartphonechip cancellationsIntel's Atom processor architecture will live on despite the recent cancellation of next-generation smartphone chips. 2016-05-02 19:38 2KB www.itnews.com

22 EMC World: Michael Dell Says Dell-EMC Is Gaining GroundAgainst Shrinking, Less Innovative HPDell CEO Michael Dell says his company is stealing market share from an HP Inc. andHPE that produce less revenue, less innovation and less investment in R&D.2016-05-02 18:57 2KB www.crn.com

23 The Elite 100: Celebrating The People Who Make IT HappenTo talk about technology transforming business only tells part of the story, though. At theend of the day, it's the people behind the technology that are truly the agents of change.Join us as we celebrate their work in the 2016 InformationWeek Elite 100 2016-05-02 18:312KB www.informationweek.com

24 Industry Spotlight: Build performance tests into codeWhile many shops have moved to Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, theyalso need Continuous Testing capabilities to achieve a continuous ecosystem2016-05-02 17:45 8KB sdtimes.com

25 Industry Spotlight: Beautiful mobile apps happen whendesign and development are equalsKony Visualizer 7.0 aims to democratize the process of building powerful, diverse userexperiences for tablets, smartphones and more 2016-05-02 17:39 8KB sdtimes.com

26 Cirrity's 'Game-Changing' Buy-In-Bulk Cloud Pricing MeantTo Help Partners Up Cloud MarginsThe cloud service provider says partners can double their cloud margins with its game-changing wholesale cloud pricing model. 2016-05-02 17:01 3KB www.crn.com

27 Intel Adds Crystal Well-based Skylake-R Processors: 65Wwith 128MB eDRAMIntel has added three new microprocessors for embedded and highly-integratedapplications into its lineup. The new CPUs are based on the Skylake microarchitecture...2016-05-02 16:30 6KB www.anandtech.com

28 Exabeam Channel Chief: Here's Why Partners ShouldBoost Their Security Strategy With User Behavior AnalyticsThe market for User Behavior Analytics (UBA) is gaining steam in the security space,expected to jump from $50 million today to $200 million by the end of 2017. Here's howpartners can take advantage. 2016-05-02 16:30 1KB www.crn.com

29 Oculus Rift demos go on the road starting May 7Oculus announced a program today that should allow more potential VR customers toget some hands-on time with the company's Rift headset... 2016-05-02 16:29 2KBtechreport.com

30 4 Techie Gift Ideas For Mother's DaySurprise Mom with a new, high-tech compatible bag or a smart photo book.2016-05-02 15:02 1KB www.crn.com

31 Antec's P9 Window is a mid-tower case with a viewAntec's newly minted P9 Window mid-tower case provides an unobstructed view of itsinterior through a large side-panel window, as its... 2016-05-02 14:48 2KB techreport.com

32 A judge has partially dismissed Twitter's surveillance caseagainst the governmentA California court has dismissed part of a lawsuit brought by Twitter that challenges U. S.government restrictions on what it can say about surveillance requests on its users.2016-05-02 14:21 1KB www.itnews.com

33 Facebook Messenger testing Snapchat-style disappearingmessages for iOSPotential version of the FB Messenger iOS app has a time-limit for your messages toremain visible. 2016-05-02 14:09 2KB www.itnews.com

34 14% off Fitbit Charge HR Wireless Activity Wristband - DealAlertThe highly rated fitness tracker is currently on sale. Save $21 and buy the Fitbit ChargeHR for $128.71. 2016-05-02 13:40 1KB www.itnews.com

35 Disney files patent for near instantaneous 3D printingDisney has filed a patent for a new 3D printing technique that uses high-intensity light toharden resin into a shape in a single process, unlike traditional 3D printing that uses alayer-by-layer approach. 2016-05-02 13:27 3KB www.itnews.com

36 Why CEOs must go big in digital (or go home)CEOs are investing heavily in digital business strategies, hoping to avoid the kind ofdisruption roiling sectors such as transportation, banking and other industries. And that’sgood news for CIOs. 2016-05-02 13:15 4KB www.itnews.com

37 How ReST Simplifies Object StorageReSTful APIs make it easy for applications to manage data and metadata on a globalbasis without intense recoding of applications. 2016-05-02 12:06 4KBwww.informationweek.com

38 CIOs: Match security plans to your company's 'riskappetite'CIOs discuss their risk-management strategies for dealing with cybersecurity threats andthe aftermath of a data breach. 2016-05-02 11:45 1KB www.computerworld.com

39 Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare goes full sci-fi with space-based gunfightsI guess this makes Infinite Warfare objectively one notch better than Star WarsBattlefront. 2016-05-02 11:14 2KB www.itnews.com

40 Elon Musk: Tesla Model 3 Will Offer Ludicrous ModeFans of Tesla's gasp-inducing Ludicrous mode will be happy to know the accelerationboosting technology will be available for the Model 3. 2016-05-02 10:38 3KBwww.informationweek.com

41 YouTube Testing A New Material UI Design On The WebAlmost every Google app on Android devices now has a material design interface plussome of Google’s web pages as well, Google’s global video-sharingwebsite, YouTube which isn't part of the collection of sites that have material designelements implemented, could be changing soon, as they appear to be testing a...2016-05-02 09:46 1KB pctechmag.com

42 8 Things Partners Need To Know About Dell's New IoTEffortDell’s recently signed Internet of Things agreement with several independent softwarevendors that will soon form the basis of an IoT-focused overlay to its PartnerDirectchannel partner program, the vendor says. The agreement includes several tiers of ISVs,about 30 so far,... 2016-05-02 09:40 5KB www.crn.com

43 attends Silicon Valley Virtual Reality 2016I spent a few days last week at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Expo in San Jose. SVVRis a fairly small convention that... 2016-05-02 08:54 9KB techreport.com

44 FBI Hacking Authority Expanded By Supreme CourtWith the US Supreme Court's approval, warrants to search and seize digital data will beable to authorize government hacking anywhere. 2016-05-02 08:06 4KBwww.informationweek.com

45 Carved Wood Power Bank review: A charming, stylish andhand-finished wooden power bank that does a very importantjobA charming, stylish and hand-finished wooden power bank, the Carved Wood PowerBank is able to keep your phone and/or tablet topped up for extended periods away fromhome. We review the Carved Wood Power Bank 12000mAh. 2016-05-02 08:00 5KBwww.pcadvisor.co.uk

46 Cheaper than the Galaxy S7 but just as good-looking -Galaxy A5 2016 in picturesPC Advisor photographer Dominik Tomasewski got his hands on the new Galaxy A5 for2016, and this is what happened next - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016) original photography.2016-05-02 07:30 1KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk

47 EVGA GeForce GT 710 review: A £29 graphics upgradewhich will fit pretty much any PCIdeal for those who want to add extra outputs to an existing PC, the new GeForce cardcosts less than a decent game - but don’t try using it to play one. Here's our EVGAGeForce GT 710 review. 2016-05-02 07:16 7KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk

48 Inside Intel's Museum: 10 Must-See ExhibitsThe Intel Museum, located at the chipmaker's corporate headquarters in Santa Clara,Calif., reveals fascinating facts and insights into the company and its technology,including how processors are actually made, the history of these chips, and what thefuture holds. 2016-05-02 07:06 2KB www.informationweek.com

49 GoPro Karma drone release date, specifications, pricerumours: New drone coming before Summer 2016GoPro is launching a drone soon. Here’s what we know about the GoPro Karma releasedate, price, specs and features. 2016-05-02 07:00 3KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk

50 Mafia 3 release date UK, price, features and trailer: Comingto PS4, Xbox One and PC this OctoberMafia 3 looks set to be one of the best games of 2016 and you get bonus content whenyou pre-order. 2016-05-02 07:00 2KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk

51 10 tips to help CIOs reduce stressToo much work-related stress is unhealthy, but reducing it may be easier than you think.2016-05-02 06:34 7KB www.itnews.com

52 Cavium Brings 64-Bit ARM Architecture to Network,Storage SoCsThe company in the past has used the MIPS architecture in its Octeon chips, but now isexpanding its strategy to include the ARM-based Octeon TX SoCs. 2016-05-02 23:58 5KBwww.eweek.com

53 Microsoft Restricts Cortana to Edge and Bing to ProtectWindows 10Microsoft limits Cortana to Edge and Bing on Windows 10; U. S. risks losing edge in HPC,supercomputing, report says; Pentagon bug bounty program attracts strong hackerinterest; and there's more. 2016-05-02 22:49 8KB www.eweek.com

54 Talari SD-WAN Technology Now Supports Microsoft Azure,Hyper-VThe company's virtual appliances already worked with VMware and AWS, but now willalso support Microsoft's cloud and virtualization platforms. 2016-05-02 23:05 4KBwww.eweek.com

ArticlesTotal 54 articles, created at 2016-05-03 06:02

1 EMC World: Tucci Passes Torch To Dell (2.00/3)

EMC Chairman and CEO Joe Tucci on Monday gave what he said will be hislast EMC World keynote as head of EMC, and set the stage for the pendingacquisition of EMC by Dell by introducing the future head of the combinedcompany, Michael Dell.

Tucci, who took the stage to a loud round of applause and left the stage to astanding ovation, told the customers and partners at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegasthat things will change with the merger.

"I can tell you right now, this is not the end of something great," Tucci said. "This is the beginningof something greater. "

[Related: EMC World: VMware CEO Gelsinger Absent From Conference Stage ]

While EMC shareholders have yet to vote on the merger, customers have already done so withtheir support for EMC, Tucci said.

"Hopefully, you'll say, I was here at the creating of this very special company," he said.

Tucci, at the end of his short keynote, brought Michael Dell, whom he called his friend, on stage."This man is wickedly smart. … He truly listens to customers. "

Dell returned the compliment. "I want to thank you for your friendship and your advice over thepast years," he said.

Dell then set the stage for the expected close later this year of Dell's acquisition of EMC byannouncing that the combined company will be known as Dell Technologies. Dell Technologieswill include the current Dell business plus EMC Information Infrastructure, VMware, Pivotal,SecureWorks, RSA and Virtustream.

Going forward, the company's enterprise business will be known as Dell EMC, Michael Dellsaid.

Tucci said the IT industry is going through a digital evolution that will have an even greaterimpact on business than the Industrial Revolution did, with the more than 5 billion smart devicesin use today expected to quickly grow to more than 100 billion devices, all of which are throwingout all kinds of data that has to be captured and used.

This is resulting in massive changes to how products are sold and distributed, and how softwareis written, which makes the decision for EMC to combine with Dell the right one, Tucci said.

"It's been an incredible journey for us," he said.

Dell, EMC's New Corporate Brand: Dell Technologieseweek.com

Dell plus EMC has a name: Dell Technologiesitnews.com

2016-05-02 15:42 Joseph F www.crn.com

2 NVIDIA & Samsung Settle All Patent Infringement Disputes

(1.00/3)

Roughly a year and a half ago, NVIDIA openedup a patent infringement case against Samsungand Qualcomm , claiming that the various GPUsused by the two firms violated various NVIDIApatents. In response, Samsung opened up theirown counter-suit , claiming that NVIIDA and itspartners were violating Samsung patents. Sincethen, things have not progressed well for NVIDIA,with the US International Trade Commission (ITC)

ruling that Samsung’s GPUs don’t infringe on NVIDIA’s patents , while also ruling that NVIDIA’sGPUs did infringe on Samsung’s patents.

Now with the final ruling on Samsung’s counter-suit originally scheduled for today, NVIDIA hasannounced that they have buried the hatchet with Samsung , ending all litigation between thecompanies. In their announcement, NVIDIA notes that both companies have ended their suitswith the US courts, US ITC, and the US Patent office, effective immediately. In turn, bothcompanies have agreed to cross-license “a small number of patents by each company to theother,” while noting that this is not a broad cross-licensing agreement. All other terms of the deal– such as any potential payments – are not being disclosed.

As noted by Bloomberg , NVIDIA faced a potential import ban on some of their products shouldthey have lost the final ruling on the Samsung counter-suit, so combined with their earlier lossesat the ITC, there was a clear need for NVIDIA to settle the case rather than waiting on ITC andcourt rulings. This, in turn, seemingly puts a wrench in NVIDIA’s overall mobile patent licensingefforts , as the Samsung case was their best opportunity to get a ruling that other mobile GPUs

were violating their patents. That there is some cross-licensing going on between Samsung andNVIDIA does mean that NVIDIA holds at least some patents that Samsung believes they need,but that this is being settled quietly out of court means that it’s hard to imagine that NVIDIA has astrong position for further patent licensing efforts.

Samsung and Nvidia make peace by ending their patent lawsuitsitnews.com

2016-05-02 20:15 Ryan Smith www.anandtech.com

3 Nadella explains why Microsoft sued the U. S. government

(1.00/3)

Microsoft surprised the world last month when itfiled a lawsuit against the U. S. Department ofJustice, alleging that the frequent practice ofattaching gag orders to search warrants forcustomer data violates the U. S. Constitution.

On Monday, CEO Satya Nadella told a group oftech luminaries why the company did so:Microsoft has a strong view on its privacypromises to users, and the company will fight toprevent government overreach that, in its view,compromises the principles of privacy.

Governments have a compelling need to help preserve public safety, but Microsoft wants tomake sure that users' privacy is also preserved, Nadella said.

"We are hoping that there is a new framework of law that allows, in fact, our government in theUnited States to get the right balance between privacy and public safety," Nadella said during aninterview at the Technology Alliance's annual State of Technology luncheon in Seattle, monitoredvia webcast. "The onus is on the United States to get that right, because we are, after all, thebeacon that everyone else will look to. If we get it right, every other democracy will look to us asa model. "

To that end, he and Microsoft President Brad Smith have called on governments to worktogether on rules that can cement both privacy protections and governments' ability to keepcitizens safe.

What remains to be seen is how well that push will work out. Governments around the world arewrestling with how to deal with encrypted systems that prevent anyone, even the companies thatcreated the system in the first place, from getting access to data inside.

Microsoft's CEO explains why his company sued the U.S. governmentitnews.com

2016-05-02 17:26 Blair Hanley www.computerworld.com

4 Can Oracle buy its way into the cloud? (1.00/3)

It wasn't so long ago that Oracle dismissed cloudcomputing as " gibberish. " Today, it's singing adifferent tune.

Through a string of acquisitions , the databasegiant has been buying a presence in the cloud inmuch the same way it built up its on-premisesportfolio decades ago. What remains to be seenis whether that strategy can work as well in thisnew setting.

Acquisitions of companies such as PeopleSoftand Siebel played a key role in fleshing out

Oracle's traditional applications portfolio back in the mid-2000s, helping the company become amajor player in enterprise software.

Today, many of its acquisitions focus on small companies that serve industry verticals withtailored SaaS (software as a service). Just in the past week or so that's included Opower ,focusing on the utilities industry, and Textura , which targets engineering and construction.

"As Oracle’s traditional business in software licenses is under pressure, it needs to quickly rampup cloud subscriptions to make up the difference," said analyst Frank Scavo, president ofComputer Economics. "It’s much easier to buy those customers than it is to grow themorganically with cloud apps newly developed internally. "

There's no reason that strategy can't work as well in the cloud as it did on-premises, Scavo said."Oracle has been rolling up cloud application providers for years now -- just look at Taleo,RightNow and Eloqua. "

SAP has taken a similar route, Forrester analyst John Rymer said.

"Their ability to transition their ERP customers to SaaS has been really limited," Rymer said."But by buying up SuccessFactors, Concur and other SaaS properties and then expandingthem, they've actually begun to pivot the company to become a cloud company. "

IBM has followed this strategy to some extent as well, including its purchase of SoftLayer in2013.

Oracle has made pronouncements about becoming a general provider of cloud infrastructure, afield largely dominated by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft's Azure. But that's probably notwhere Oracle's real focus lies.

"It's all about the apps," Rymer said. "It's getting the apps into Oracle's cloud that is the object ofthe game. "

Oracle executive chairman and CTO Larry Ellison has said Oracle aims to compete withAmazon. "That's not true," Rymer said. "They're competing with SAP, IBM and Salesforce. "

The real money for a player like Oracle is in cloud applications and cloud platforms forapplication development, Scavo said. "Oracle’s IaaS offerings are simply to ensure that it ownsthe whole stack, from cloud infrastructure to applications. "

The company has also looked to industry verticals to distinguish itself for a long time.

"They've had industry product groups for years," Rymer said. "They're trying to differentiatethemselves and get closer to a real solution for these companies. "

IBM has also pursued a vertical strategy, Rymer said, as have many of the other big players.

"Enterprises adopting cloud typically start with AWS and Salesforce, but you do see themstarting to branch out a bit," Rymer said. "They're looking to use public clouds for businesssystems. "

It stands to reason that traditional enterprise vendors -- Oracle, Microsoft, IBM and SAP -- wouldhave at least a shot at that new business. But it's no slam dunk, largely because of customers'past experiences with those vendors, Rymer said.

"It's no secret that a lot of people don't like dealing with Oracle, and there are similar relationshiphorror stories about all the big enterprise vendors," he said. "A lot of folks say, 'We don't wantthe same kind of relationship we have with them now.'"

AWS, Azure and Google all promise something more flexible, and for some customers thetrade-off is worthwhile even if it means more work.

"The big enterprise vendors understand enterprises," Rymer said. "I think they have a chance,but we'll see how that tension plays out. "

Growing by acquisition depends on making sure that senior decision-makers "don’t screw it up,and that the people you acquire stay with the firm," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst withEnderle Group.

The odds that Oracle can successfully take on Amazon, Google and Microsoft that way are slim,Enderle said.

Ultimately, an entirely different route may emerge.

"Oracle’s move to the cloud has been almost painful to watch, largely because you know the endgame will likely be to merge with Salesforce and put Benioff in as CEO of the new combinedcompany," Enderle said.

For that to happen, though, "Larry would need to get out of the way first, and he appearsunwilling to do that, even as the firms draw closer and closer together," Enderle said.

"These interim buys appear to be drawing Oracle in that direction, but far slower and lesscapably than if this merger had already taken place," he said. "They desperately need morecloud expertise at the top to craft the company Oracle is becoming. "

Can Oracle buy a way into the cloud?computerworld.com

2016-05-02 16:56 Katherine Noyes www.itworld.com

5 U. S. uncovers $20 million H-1B fraud scheme (1.00/3)

The U. S. government has indicted a Virginiacouple for running an H-1B visa-for-sale schemethe government said generated about $20million.

Raju Kosuri and Smriti Jharia of Ashburn, Va.,along with four co-conspirators, were indicted lastweek by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va.,according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The scheme involved, in part, setting up anetwork of shell companies and the filing of H-1Bvisas applications for non-existent job vacancies.

Workers were required to pay their own visa-processing fees and were treated as hourlycontractors, the DOJ alleged. Treating H-1B workers as hourly contractors is in violation of theprogram rules, the government said.

More than 800 H-1B visa petitions were submitted over a period of nearly 15 years, accordingto court documents.

The six people indicted in the case face prison time of anywhere from 10 to 30 years ifconvicted. Neither Kosuri or Jharia could not be reached immediately for comment.

The H-1B program may be susceptible to fraud. In 2008, U. S. Citizenship and ImmigrationService reported that a review of 246 randomly selected petitions filed in 2005 and 2006revealed a fraud rate of just over 13 percent. The government's analysis found forgeddocuments, fake degrees, and shell companies with fake locations.

Jail time is an ongoing risk for people convicted of H-1B fraud, although it's difficult to know howmany have actually been sent to prison for it. One H-1B fraud case that may involve a prisonsentence is pending in Texas. A U. S. District Court judge in Dallas is scheduled to considersentencing, as early as this week, for brothers Atul Nanda and Jiten "Jay" Nanda, for visa fraudfollowing a jury verdict last November. They face up to 20 years in prison for using the visaprogram to create an on-demand workforce, the government alleged.

U.S. uncovers $20M H-1B fraud schemecomputerworld.com

2016-05-02 14:28 Patrick Thibodeau www.infoworld.com

6 Oracle pays $532 million to snatch up another cloud service

provider (1.00/3)

Hard on the heels of a similar purchase lastweek, Oracle has announced it will pay $532million to buy Opower, a provider of cloudservices to the utilities industry.

Once a die-hard cloud holdout , Oracle has beenmaking up for lost time by buying a foothold inspecific industries through acquisitions such asthis one. Last week's Textura buy gave it a legup in engineering and construction.

"It’s a good move on Oracle’s part, and itdefinitely strengthens Oracle’s cloud story," said

Frank Scavo, president of Computer Economics.

Opower's big-data platform helps utilities improve customer service, reduce costs and meetregulatory requirements. It currently stores and analyzes more than 600 billion meter readingsfrom 60 million end customers. Opower claims more than 100 global utilities among its clients,including PG&E, Exelon and National Grid.

Opower will continue to operate independently until the transaction closes, which is expectedlater this year. The union will create the largest provider of mission-critical cloud services to anindustry that's worth $2.3 trillion, Oracle said.

Oracle's Utilities business delivers applications and cloud services that automate coreoperational processes and enable compliance for global electric, gas and water utilities.

"Oracle’s industry organizations maintain unique domain knowledge, specialized expertise andfocused product investments," said Rodger Smith, a senior vice president who leads the Utilitiesglobal business unit, in a letter to customers and partners. "This model has proven highlysuccessful across several industries, and we look forward to bringing these same benefits to thecustomers of Opower. "

Oracle is paying $532 million to snatch up another cloud service provideritworld.com

2016-05-02 12:25 Katherine Noyes www.computerworld.com

7 OpenAI Gym’s free toolkit, Microsoft SQL Server 2016, and

Windows 95 installed on Apple Watch— news digest: May 2,2016 (1.00/3)

OpenAI Gym, a toolkit for developing and comparing reinforcement learning(RL) algorithms, is now in beta. It consists of a suite of environments that canbe used for comparing and reproducing results, as well as creating situationsthat an AI can learn from.

Last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk teamed up with Y Combinator president SamAltman and former Google Brain Team scientist Ilya Sutskever to launch OpenAI, a US$1 billionnonprofit organization. Now that developers have access to the free toolkit, they can train theirown AI bots with games and other challenges.

Currently, OpenAI is compatible with algorithms written in frameworks like TensorFlow andTheano, and its environments are written in Python. According to an OpenAI blog post , theenvironments will soon be able to use any language.

Some of the environments that an AI can learn from OpenAI Gym include classic controlproblems like driving a car uphill, and Atari games like Asteroids. Other environments coveralgorithms, where the AI can learn tasks purely from examples. There are also board game and2D or 3D robot environments.

Over time, the OpenAI Gym is expected to see a collection of other environments, andcontributions are accepted, according to the blog.

SQL Server 2016 available this June

Microsoft has announced SQL Server 2016 as a way to deliver end-to-end data managementso businesses can get insights on their data on any device. This solution will be generallyavailable on June 1.

The SQL Server 2016 allows businesses to build intelligent applications on secure databases,their highest-performing data warehouse, end-to-end mobile BI on any device, and in-databaseadvanced analytics, according to a SQL Server blog post .

SQL Server 2016 manages relational and beyond-relational (Hadoop, JSON and XML) data,and it integrates structured data with Hadoop data. Also, it seamlessly integrates on-premisesdata with cloud data, according to the blog.

SQL Server 2016 can be used for:

Developer installs Windows 95 on Apple Watch

By following a few steps and modifying the software, a developer was able to install Windows 95on his Apple Watch.

Nick Lee, a partner and CTO at Tendigi, found that the Apple WatchKit SDK wouldn’t allowaccess to user touch locations directly, which meant it was possible to patch certain files within aWatchKit app to load his own application code rather than Apple’s, he wrote in a Medium post .

Lee modified Apple’s development software, which allowed him to turn Windows 95 into aWatch app, forming the environment for the operating system to run on. He said that it takes anhour to boot up, but after that, the watch’s specs are that of a standard Windows 95 computer.

Some hurdles that he had to jump through included setting up a motorized tube that turns theApple Watch’s crown, which prevents it from falling asleep, he wrote. His code can be found onGitHub, but he said that developers will need to source the files that show up in red because theyaren’t redistributable.

Microsoft SQL Server 2016 finally gets a release datecomputerworld.com

2016-05-02 12:20 Madison Moore sdtimes.com

8 This is the real Bitcoin creator! (1.00/3)

Craig Wright, an Australian entrepreneur haspublicly identified himself as Bitcoin creatorSatoshi Nakamoto, bringing an end tothe speculation about who came up with theoriginal ideas underlying the digital cash system.

Craig has provided technical proof to back up hisclaim using coins known to be owned by Bitcoin’screator.

He revealed his identity to three mediaorganisations – the BBC, the Economist and GQand during the meeting, he digitally signed

messages using cryptographic keys created during the early days of Bitcoin’s development.

The keys are inextricably linked to blocks of bitcoins known to have been created or “mined” bySatoshi Nakamoto.

Jon Matonis, an economist and one of the founding directors of the Bitcoin Foundation, said hewas convinced that Mr Wright was who he claimed to be, saying he had the opportunity to reviewthe relevant data along three distinct lines: cryptographic, social, and technical,” he said.

Craig Wright claims he is bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamotoitnews.com

2016-05-02 10:01 Ephraim Batambuze pctechmag.com

9 2016 Big Data 100: 20 Coolest Platform And Tools Vendors

Platform And Tools Vendors

Business analytics and data management software maybe the most visible components of a company's big dataecosystem. But underlying those systems are criticalplatforms, tools, cloud services and other infrastructurethat keep everything running.

The CRN editorial team has created the fourth annualBig Data 100 list , identifying vendors that havedemonstrated an ability to innovate in bringing to marketproducts and services that help businesses work withbig data.

Here are 20 big data platform and tools companiesoffering everything from hardware servers, to softwareplatforms and applications, to cloud-based services.Some, such as IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Oracle, have broad product lines that alsoinclude analytics, data management and infrastructure technologies for tackling big data.

2016 Big Data 100: 30 Coolest Data Management Vendorscrn.com

The 2016 Big Data 100crn.com

2016-05-03 00:20 Rick Whiting www.crn.com

10 ID15 concept car interior: The future of not-driving

Roku Streaming Stick 2016

Roku has the most apps, the simplest interfaceand the best search, making it CNET's favoriteway to stream Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO and allthe rest.

2016-05-03 03:37 Emme Hall www.cnet.com

11 Nvidia 365.10 drivers are

Game Ready for MOBAs andForza Apex

Variations on MOBA games are everywhere these days.There's Blizzard's Overwatch , Epic's Paragon , and 2K'sBattleborn. And, of course, there are new Nvidiagraphics drivers geared up for all this multiplayer action.Please welcome Nvidia's WHQL-certified 365.10 driverrelease.

If it's not clear by now, Nvidia says the new release is"Game Ready" for the titles mentioned above. Our ownNathan "Jr. Damage" Wasson has given his preliminaryseal of approval to Overwatch and Battleborn inparticular. There's also good news for motorsportsimulation fans: Forza Motorsport 6: Apex will enter openbeta this Thursday, and the drivers also includeoptimizations for it. The game looks to be gorgeous, andNvidia has helpfully published recommended systemspecifications for running it.

Nvidia says gamers will need at least a Core i3-4170 CPU and a GeForce GTX 470 graphicscard to run Forza. For good performance at 1080p and a target of 60 FPS, Nvidia recommendsa Core i7-3820 and a GeForce GTX 970. Finally, for those lucky enough to be running a 4Kdisplay, Nvidia says a Core i7-6700K and a GeForce GTX 980 Ti should be good enough tomaintain 60 FPS at that resolution.

To get in on the action, Nvidia users can download the 365.10 drivers here for Windows 10 , orfor Windows 8, 7, and Vista using this link .

2016-05-03 00:01 by Bruno techreport.com

12 EMC reveals quest to modernise the data centre at EMC

World 2016EMC has announced a swathe of new productsat its annual EMC World conference in LasVegas that is claims will help businesses get themost from the investments they have alreadymade in their data centres while they movetowards a more modern infrastructure.

Key to this strategy is the launch of EMC Unity, anew family of all-flash storage arrays announcedtoday targeted at mid-market IT departments. Aswell as a purpose-built all-flash array, the file and

block storage system can also be deployed in a hybrid or converged configuration, or software-defined through UnityVSA.

The company also announced Virtustream Storage Cloud, aimed at large enterprises, serviceproviders and public sector bodies, and a new cloud-based service dashboard called EMCMyService360.

Additionally, the organisation announced EMC Enterprise Copy Data Management, which isintended to reduce the cost of storing and managing data by identifying multiple copies of thesame data, allowing businesses to delete what they do not need to keep.

Finally, it announced ViPR Controller 3, which is designed to bridge the gap between traditionaland cloud-native environments in a multivendor storage environment.

Several members of the company's senior management said this raft of announcements - withmore to follow tomorrow - are proof that, despite some industry voices claiming the contrary, ithas continued to innovate despite the upcoming merger with Dell, which is expected to completeby the end of this year.

Senior writer Jane McCallion is on the ground at EMC World 2016. Follow her on Twitter for liveupdates over the next three days and click here for more from this year's conference.

2016-05-03 00:00 Jane McCallion www.itpro.co.uk

13 Data Privancy in the cloud: Five current issues in

complianceCloud computing has revolutionized how people live and work; however, at thesame time IT professionals must now navigate new potential risks, just as theywould with any disruptive technology.

In particular, while cloud computing blurs borders from a technologicalperspective, it’s driving greater privacy laws and regulation, such as initiativesaround localization and data protection. So, although cloud computing definitely offerstremendous opportunities for global businesses, capitalize on them requires IT professionals tohave a familiarity with data-privacy-compliance issues.

2016-05-02 20:13 www.itworldcanada.com

14 Capital One: Think Like A Designer, Work Like A Startup

When you think "tech startup," a financial institution that's nearly 30 years old and employs

40,000 people is hardly what springs to mind. Yeta startup culture is exactly what Capital OneFinancial is cultivating in its approach to techadvances such as the Capital One Wallet mobileapp.

That's only one way the financial institution isbreaking the mold in its industry. Capital OneFinancial has also embraced Design Thinking, agroundbreaking approach for developing goodsand services. The company sends executives toStanford University's Hasso Plattner Institute ofDesign for training, and then incorporates themethodology throughout the organization.

"Fundamentally, our products are customers' experiences that are principally distributed throughsoftware," said Rob Alexander, CIO of Capital One Financial, in an interview withInformationWeek. Recognizing that helped the organization focus on building software that couldleverage the data and analytics about its customer relationships and -- most importantly -- placethese skill sets right alongside marketing, customer relationship management, and brand-building as crucial elements in the company's strategy.

"With that understanding, we embarked on a shift from IT to technology," said Alexander. "Overthe course of this transformation, we rebranded ourselves from the IT department to Capital OneTechnology. "

A typical bank organization will largely procure third-party software for its internal and customer-facing operations, Alexander said. Capital One, on the other hand, is "an organization that trulybuilds its own software and develops its own solutions. That is a different DNA," he said.

Capital One Wallet can be seen as a microcosm of this transformation. "It reflects how weoperate today, [which] is very different from how a typical bank operates," Alexander said.

To hear Alexander describe what that looks like at Capital One is an exercise in cognitivedissonance. You know you're talking to the CIO of a large financial institution, but the words heuses sound more like the eager story of a Silicon Valley startup:

All of these factors came to bear in the creation of Capital One Wallet. "We built Capital OneWallet entirely native, first for iOS, then Android," Alexander said. "We were first to have a walletapp with Android tap-to-pay incorporated into the app, and we did it all in under nine months. "

Capital One Wallet is designed to help customers track spending. It flags potential fraudulentactivity through real-time alerts sent when either a physical credit/debit card or Apple Pay orAndroid Pay is used. Customers can see a running list of their transactions, which -- unliketraditional banking apps -- instantly displays enhanced information, such as the true merchantidentity, location, and contact information.

The app also gives customers the ability to instantly redeem rewards points for digital gift cards,apply them to past travel charged to their credit card, or use them to pay off a statement. It alsoincluded Apple Touch ID as part of the initial launch.

The app offers either Touch ID or SureSwipe, which uses a customized nine-dot pattern sign-in,rather than a standard user name and password. The Capital One Wallet uses a differentidentifier than the physical plastic credit/debit card, so there's no need to cancel the card if thephone is lost, and vice versa.

In addition to the iOS Capital One Wallet, the company released capabilities to integrate withthe Apple Watch. Capital One Wallet for Android devices is also one of the first mobile tap-and-pay solutions in the US to use host card emulation, which is Android's equivalent of Apple Pay.

Collaboration among various stakeholders was a key element in the development of the CapitalOne Wallet -- and the company's ongoing design practices.

The project began with a series of design sessions intended to uncover the unarticulated needsof customers and define a problem that needed solving. Involved in the design sessions wereassociates from Capital One Technology and Digital, as well as business associates from thecompany's bank and credit card businesses.

Scott Totman, head engineer on the Capital One Wallet project, joined the company three and ahalf years ago. He was one of the professionals selected to attend classes at the StanfordUniversity Institute of Design.

"What I learned coming out of it is that you're not asking the customer what the next feature isthat they'd like to see," Totman said. "You're asking the customer to tell you a story about theirrelationship with financial services and money. You listen for pain points, purchasing points, andthe customer,

Page 2: The challenge of real-time

2016-05-02 20:07 Susan Nunziata www.informationweek.com

15 The Weather Company Brings Together Forecasting And IoT

The Weather Company and its project tomodernize its data collection, storage, andforecasting platform won recognition in last year'sElite 100, coming in at No. 5.

So it's no big surprise that, a year later, TheWeather Company is in the top 5 again as thecompany continues to build on its previoussuccess. Its expanded ambitions involve its newparent company, IBM, and a plan to applyWatson cognitive computing to the Internet ofThings (IoT).

What does all that have to do with weather?"Weather, at the end of the day, is the original bigdata problem," said CIO and CTO Bryson Koehler.

Koehler joined The Weather Company in July 2012 to update the company's infrastructure of 13maxed-out data centers and aging apps and turn it into a platform that could be leveraged byexternal companies. He led the team that created a new cloud-based, cloud-agnostic, datadriven infrastructure for predicting the weather and providing API-based delivery of weather-related content.

That project put weather prediction information in the hands of people who need it, and that's alot of them, because weather affects every person, every industry, and every business in theworld.

The Weather Company estimates that weather is perhaps the single largest external factoraffecting business performance, to the tune of nearly $1 trillion lost annually in the US alone.Combining weather data with business data can improve decision-making for a wide range ofcompanies across many industries -- from retailers looking to stock the right SKUs and optimizesupply chains, to insurance companies that want to advise policyholders about ways to minimizedamages in the event of impending severe weather.

Weather, it turns out, is only the first phase for The Weather Company's platform. With the rise ofthe Internet of Things (IoT), The Weather Company has positioned itself to move well beyond itsoriginal charter of predicting weather and helping companies make better decisions based on

weather predictions.

After all, weather stations are really IoT devices, Koehler said. They are equipped with multiplesensors for detecting barometric pressure, humidity, temperature, wind speed and direction,and other values.

It was the potential of the platform for IoT data that first piqued the interest of IBM, Koehler said.IBM announced plans to acquire The Weather Company in October 2015, saying that it woulduse the company's platform as the basis of its IoT effort for its cognitive computing business,Watson. The deal closed in January.

The original partnership between IBM and The Weather Company grew out of a conversation ata bar in Las Vegas during a big data event in October 2014. Koehler was a speaker at theconference, and at the end of the day he had drinks with Mac Devine, CTO of the IBM Cloudorganization.

Devine told Koehler that IBM wanted to build an IoT capability for its Watson cognitivecomputing platform, and the company wanted it right away. IBM was trying to move beyondbespoke solutions created anew for every single client and into an API-driven creation ofapplications for clients.

"I said, 'Well, don't go build that, I've already built it,'" Koehler said he told Devine. "'Why don'tyou just use our platform?' And he said, 'Well, that's great but isn't that just a weather platform?'And I said 'No!'"

That conversation led to a partnership between The Weather Company and IBM, announced inMarch 2015, that let IBM license use of the data platform The Weather Company had built,Koehler said. The agreement also included The Weather Company moving its platform to IBMSoftLayer, the tech giant's cloud platform. (The Weather Company's data platform operates onboth the IBM cloud platform and on AWS today. A spokesperson said the company plans toexpand it to run on other cloud infrastructure platforms, too.)

IoT and cloud computing enabled collection of data from more than 100,000 weather sensorsand aircraft, from millions of smartphones, buildings, and moving vehicles, IBM noted in itsannouncement of the partnership with The Weather Company last year. Weather information andIoT information work in similar ways, and that's what is enabling the extension of The WeatherCompany's modernized platform, originally called SUN (Storage UtilityNetwork) and built to behosted on any public cloud service.

"We built this very agnostically," Koehler said. "If you think about the weather, the data types thatcome into weather are all over the place -- lightning data, pollen data, radar data, which isstreaming data. We have model data that comes in. We have crowd-sourced user-generatedcontent data where people are doing crowd reports. We have personal weather stations, whichsend us data, which are really just IoT devices. So we have hundreds of different types of data,hundreds of terabytes a day coming in. "

The weather data, storage, and prediction platform that Koehler's team had built was effectivelyan IoT data platform.

"Yes, we applied the platform to building weather forecasts and powering our mobileapplications and our B2B applications," Koehler said. "But fundamentally the work we do toprotect and prepare people and businesses for tomorrow is no different than what any businessapplication is trying to do as it looks at vast amounts of data, creates insights off that data, andthen helps a business make a smarter decision. "

Koehler said the goal is to move from simply predicting what will happen to actually helpingbusinesses use that information to make smarter decisions.

The partnership with IBM, announced in March 2015, soon turned into much more. "Everybodyquickly recognized that this would be really powerful if we went deeper," Koehler said. "And

because we were talking about something important, we really had to get to a place where allthe intellectual property was owned by the same company so we could completely share it. "

IBM announced in October 2015 that it would acquire many of the assets of The WeatherCompany — all the forecasting, analytics, and data assets, and also all the brands andapplications other than The Weather Channel television property. The deal included TheWeather Company's B2B mobile and cloud-based Web properties, including the professionalservices arm, WSI; the weather.com website, Weather Underground, which includes the networkof personal weather stations; and The Weather Company brand. The Weather Channel TVsegment was not included in the purchase, but continues to license weather forecast andanalytics from IBM under a long-term contract.

When the deal was completed in January 2016, The Weather Company Chairman and CEODavid Kenny was named to lead the IBM Watson organization, one of the core businesses inwhich IBM expects to drive growth for the company in the future. Kenny said then that his goalwas to make Watson into a more cohesive product that would offer Artificial Intelligence-as-a-Service.

"What Watson knows today is awesome," said Koehler. "But for Watson to continue addingincremental value to its customers, Watson has to get smarter. "

The Weather Company's platform has added new data, architecture, and analytics to the mix. Itsplatform leverages machine learning and 249 different open source tools, according to Koehler.In addition, it includes proprietary capabilities. Most of the platform was written in Scala, and afew of the technologies it leverages include Cassandra, Spark, Riak, and Redis.

In the months since the acquisition was completed, Koehler's effort has been very much focusedon the work required for building out the IoT insights platform for Watson to support internalgroups across IBM.

IoT is one of many platforms built on top of the Watson cognitive computing platform, whichKoehler explained is designed to have many hundreds, or even thousands of applications builton top of it. "So if you look at Watson IoT or Watson Health, those are Watson applications. Andthere will be hundreds of those. They are distinct applications solving specific needs in specificindustries that have specific use-cases. "

That's the idea behind Watson and the concept of Artificial Intelligence-as-a-Service. "When youthink about moving from what was once BI and analytics, and now you are talking about insightsand cognitive computing capabilities, we want to bring that to life," Koehler said. "Cognitivecomputing is about taking it to action. It's the ability to enable a business to react in real-timeand do something different. "

What advice does Koehler have for CIOs looking to bring together data, cognitive computing,and IoT in their organizations? "Be brave. Be bold. Don't spend your time creating a new shadeof red, but rather create an entirely new color," he said. "So many IT shops are in need of radicalchange and transformation that will only come through taking bold steps with high velocity.Clearly this comes with some risks, but I believe that playing it safe is far riskier than taking onsome large risks within your organization. "

2016-05-02 20:04 Jessica Davis www.informationweek.com

16 Horizon Prioritizes Data And Patient Experience

The healthcare delivery system traditionally has adhered to a fee-for-service model. Physiciansare paid based on quantity, not quality, of treatments, which some observers say has led to adecline in the value of care and a rise in healthcare costs.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, recognizing that this system was financiallyunsustainable and didn't reward care quality, decided to turn the old model on its head. Its efforts

to move to a fee-for-value model followed the launch of theAffordable Care Act (ACA) and the start of healthcarereform. The organization's CIO, Doug Blackwell, calls theeffort a strategy to hit the "triple aim. "

"It's really getting into three different components,"Blackwell explained. "The first is the overall improvementin the quality of healthcare, the second is improvement inthe total cost of care, and the third is enhancing the patientexperience. "

The ACA kick-started healthcare reform by providingvarious benefits and capabilities to customers, Blackwellsaid. Eventually, though, the Newark, N. J.-based insurerwas left asking a pivotal question: Where to go fromthere?

Its answer: Horizon's Health Care Value Strategy, an enterprise-wide initiative designed toachieve the triple-aim goal and to provide technical and nontechnical capabilities that improvehealthcare delivery while lowering costs for patients.

Horizon's innovation efforts began in 2011, when it adopted a startup approach to launch andscale programs and products aligned with its pay-for-value strategy. These programs andservices included patient-centered medical homes, accountable care organizations, andepisodes-of-care models.

The Health Care Value Strategy officially started in early 2013, with the goal of culminating intime for the 2016 open enrollment period for health insurance. All 5,000 employees at Horizonwere trained for the project.

Business and IT leaders were faced with the task of determining which types of technologieswould be used to support the pay-for-performance model, provide customers with betterinformation to make healthcare decisions, and improve their experience.

"All systems across the board needed to be addressed," said Blackwell, noting that the strategyaffected every aspect of product development. More than 80 business processes were createdor modified as part of the project, which transformed systems for enrollment, claims processing,billing, customer service, provider portals, sales, and benefit monitoring.

When adopting new technologies, "very rarely do we build everything ourselves," said Blackwell."We typically partner or go to a third party. " The decision to buy or build depends on in-housecapabilities, but all integration is done internally.

For this project, Horizon employed a buy, build, and partner approach. It focused on five keyareas: information sharing and analytics, clinical excellence, organizational alignment withprovider partners, patient engagement, and improved member experience.

Improving on analytics capabilities was crucial. The goal was to distribute high-quality, real-timeinformation to members and doctors, who could use it to quickly and effectively treat members.

For this, Horizon enhanced its Teradata platform and added Tableau for visualization. It alsobuilt extensive data warehouses to centralize claims information, which could be used tounderstand the needs of the member population and determine how to care for them.

"Rich data warehousing and analytics capabilities were, first and foremost, critical for us toestablish," said Bud Baumann, IT business solutions officer at Horizon.

Clinical excellence is also core to the pay-for-value process. Horizon improved its ability tomeasure patient care through chronic care management and utilization management. Theprocess involved improving its care management platform, EXL Healthcare's CareRadius Suite,and integrating its Care Affiliate product with NaviNet, Horizon's multipayer provider portal.

To build organizational alignment with provider partners, Horizon uses performance-drivenreimbursement and financial risk management, employing SAS Enterprise BusinessIntelligence, Teradata, and Informatica custom development. For outcome-based payment,information is shared via Microsoft. NET apps, NaviNet, and IBM WebSphere-based Webservice integration.

A major part of the project consisted of revamping the organization's Doctor Hospital Finder,which was "messy and unclear" before the project started, said Blackwell. The insurer aimed tomake it easier for patients to understand which healthcare providers were part of their plans sothey could make more informed decisions. This involved strong use of the Axure prototypingtool, which allowed early-stage versions of the app to be tested among members so Horizoncould receive feedback.

The project involved close collaboration between the business and IT divisions. Baumann sitsbetween the two and helps the business launch tech projects to solve enterprise problems. Alsoinfluential in this initiative was Naveen Paladugu, director in the Strategic Initiatives Group atHorizon.

Projects such as redesigning Horizon's provider portal and improving cost transparency haveresulted from the collaboration between business and IT. When the business has a strategy itwants to execute, it approaches IT to implement a technology solution, Paladugu said.

"This was a very complex and very challenging business and technology effort," Baumann said.There are several steps to executing a strategy of this magnitude, one of which involvedmonitoring earlier investments to see what needed to change.

"We constantly take the feedback around how well those programs work, which feeds into theStrategic Initiatives Group," he said. "We have a very strong Voice of the Customer program,where we poll members on a constant basis around what's working and what's not working. "

The teams faced obstacles with communication, pressure to deliver on tight deadlines, and thestress of aligning resources so there were enough of them to dedicate to each task within thebroader Health Care Value Strategy initiative.

"For us to be successful, it was really about alignment," said Baumann. "If you're going to breakthis up and have as many different work streams, it's important to have project managers todrive, to stick to plans, be flexible, and highlight risk early. "

Over the course of the project, Horizon appointed executive steering committees and projectsteering committees, which regularly met over a two-year period. There were few surprises inbuilding the technology despite the program's size, said Baumann, as a result of the leadershipand risk mitigation.

"You don't attack this as one big major program; you break [it] up into smaller projects,"Baumann said. That way leaders can see iterative deliverables throughout the process, seeprogress along the way, and rely on the structure of dedicated teams to drive accountability.

"Good luck," joked Blackwell when asked if he had advice for CIOs hoping to start a similarproject.

In seriousness, he acknowledged the importance of collaboration between business and IT tolaunch the Health Care Value Strategy.

"The key is the tight integration between the folks like [Paladugu], who are thinking of businessstrategy and where things need to go, as well as our IT partners, helping them co-develop ITstrategy and business strategy simultaneously," Blackwell said.

He also advocates support from the top. "Our CEO, Bob Marino, was personally involved inevery aspect of this new development, these products, the strategy, working closely with all thedifferent divisions of the organization. "

Accountability is also critical, added Paladugu. The business and IT divisions each typicallyhave several people calling the shots, sometimes confusing or contradicting each other.Appointing a singular leader for each side, and having these people assign responsibilities,ensured that all divisions were working toward the same goals.

Executives can't definitively say how successful the Health Care Value Strategy has been, but sofar its results are promising. "It's very early on," said Blackwell. While he couldn't describe howthe strategy has affected cost, he noted premium costs are lower and, in many cases, there arelower copays or no deductibles for customers.

Following the deployment of the Health Care Value Strategy, Horizon has two major ongoingprojects. The first is the implementation of a private health information exchange called theHorizon Data Services Platform. Unlike publicly provided HIEs, this launch is Horizon's ownimplementation. Blackwell described a longitudinal patient record, which involves integrationbetween electronic medical records and hospital systems to provide common information tomembers and physicians. The team is building a highway for information to pass and layeringanalytics to consolidate data and conduct retrospective and prospective analysis.

The health insurer is also working to revamp its entire digital strategy, Blackwell noted,something that all types of businesses are doing, not just insurance companies. Horizon is in themiddle of this transformation, which has been ongoing for about one year. "Toward the end ofthis year," Blackwell said, "we'll start to roll out those enhanced capabilities using a digitalplatform, using mobile, and taking advantage of preference management and some of the othernew things that are out there today. "

2016-05-02 20:01 Kelly Sheridan www.informationweek.com

17 Penn Medicine: Using Data To Save Patient Lives

Heart failure is serious business. According tothe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,half of all people with heart failure die within fiveyears of diagnosis, and treatment in the US coststhe nation around $12 billion every year.Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine, the country'soldest hospital organization, decided to use bigdata to do something about it.

Penn Signals is a system that uses existing datafrom electronic health records (EHRs) to performreal-time predictive analysis of heart failurepatients. The goal? Penn Medicine wants toplace patients in risk groups and assign them tocardiology resources in order to get them the best care and improve their outcomes.

The change from paper records to electronic ones provided an opportunity to do more than justchange the medium for patient files, said Dr. Bill Hanson, chief medical information officer atPenn Medicine, in a telephone interview with InformationWeek. Penn Medicine wanted to usenewly digitized records to improve patient care, Hanson said, and "one of the ways was toenable the backend systems to constantly scan to provide information that the frontline providermight not see or might not have access to. It's in the same way that Netflix or Amazon might lookfor patterns in what you watch or buy to offer suggestions. "

Penn Medicine, which is made up of the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School ofMedicine and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, has more than 2,500 hospital bedsand more than 31,000 employees. Penn Signal's foundation was laid in a decision thatprecision medicine was a goal of the organization, said Mike Restuccia, Penn Medicine VP andCIO.

"It's a hard decision, and it requires some strength in leadership. Our dean took the decision thatprecision medicine was the goal and led us in that direction," Restuccia said. "It ruffled somefeathers. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. "

That decision has ended up guiding the actions of Penn Medicine's roughly 600 IT employees,Restuccia said. "Our strategy … was we wanted to have common systems across theenterprise, centrally managed and collaboratively installed, with the understanding that once wehad the foundation in place, we could then build off the foundation to do useful things with thedata. "

The "useful things" that Penn Signals was created to do revolve around improving the results forheart failure patients. Clinicians (physicians who see patients, rather than research physicianswho work in labs) wondered whether there were patterns in patient data that could identify heartfailure patients earlier, identify various levels of risk in existing heart failure patients, and helpclinicians do a better job of assigning those patients to care teams and treatment protocols.

Getting to information that clinicians could act on meant diving into big data, and that requireddata scientists. Penn Medicine began by hiring Mike Draugelis as its chief data scientist. Theopportunity to have access to both rich data and clinical professionals drew Draugelis awayfrom a career in aerospace and national defense and into healthcare, said the former chief datascientist at Lockheed Martin.

"When we started this project, the chief medical officer of the hospital asked the newly formeddata science team to work with the service lines, and the heart and vascular team was the first,"Draugelis said. Cardiac care was chosen first because the clinicians there knew they had aproblem, he explained.

When the cardiac team can properly treat a patient in the early stages of heart failure, the resultsare much better. But many patients were coming into the health system and never being referredto the cardiac team because they came to the hospital for an issue that had nothing to do withtheir heart.

"The first thing we did was look at how many people were coming through the system notidentified with having a chronic heart problem," Draugelis said. The team then looked at all theinformation in the electronic health records to see which of those patients had the markers forheart failure. If the markers were there, then the patient could be flagged for review by thecardiac team.

Building the system meant combining the strength of the data and the data science team,Hanson said. "We had to invest in [the data science team], building the engine that spots orcreates the patterns that say that a patient is at high risk for readmission, but we wereleveraging the existing EHR system," he said. "That includes all the demographic information,the lab information, and the diagnostic information that goes with the record. "

Draugelis' team of six data scientists and developers, working alongside the clinicians on theproject, looked at eight years of clinical data to create the algorithms needed to correctly identifypatients' risk levels. "When you're doing this kind of development, it's important to have the teamembedded with the clinicians so we can have the conversations and converge on the best planfor the patients," he said.

"It's not just the data science team that makes this successful. It really is an integrated team withthe IT group and the clinical teams that provide the concept that they want to bring to thepatients," Draugelis said. The fact that each of those teams can be small is another piece inkeeping with Penn Medicine's general philosophy of IT management.

Brian Wells, associate VP of health technology and academic computing at Penn Medicine,leads the teams that provide the technology supporting Penn Signals. "We like the idea of smallteams," Wells said. "Mike [Draugelis] has a small team of two or three people involved in this.The clinical team that validates the results is small. We feel that teams of two to four people aremore efficient. "

The technology those small teams are providing is largely homegrown and flexible. All theclinical data, both historical and real-time, is in Penn Data Store, a system built on Oracle andIBM Data Stage that accepts and transforms the data every night, Wells said.

"It's billions of rows of data and millions of rows every night, so it's about a day behind," Wellssaid. Data comes out of this data warehouse via a system developed in-house calledClinstream. For Penn Signals, Clinstream transfers the data into a big data system built onMongoDB.

The work of the small teams collaborating with one another has been an effective system forpatients. "In terms of the accuracy and specificity of identifying the risk, it's exceeded ourexpectations," Hanson said.

This is only the beginning. "Where we've lagged is figuring out how to put [together] the end-to-end process of how to ingest data, spit out results, and deliver the results to people to get theright outcome," he said. "There's a continuum of things there, some of which are technical, someof which are workflow, and some of which are people. We're going to be continuously learninghow to do that for the next decade. "

In addition to continuing to learn how to make better use of the data at Penn Medicine, theorganization's executives said they hope to spread the word about what is possible through dataanalysis. "One thing that I really want to make other health systems aware of is that they can dothis too," Draugelis said. "It's hard, but not as hard as people think it would be. The keys arehaving the data, having the clinical team that's ready, and having them integrate the science withtheir patients. "

Restuccia agreed that more health systems should be data driven. "At the highest level we feelinstitutionally that, if a health system isn't mining its data to guide clinical care, it's like leavingmoney on the table in a poker match. It's a shame that you did it," he said. The teams are critical,Restuccia added. "You have to have almost hand-to-hand, shoulder-to-shoulder monitoring ofthe initial results to make sure they're what you thought they would be," he said. "If they're not,then tweak the systems to bring them up to your expectations. "

The upcoming generation of doctors is eager to embrace the clinical opportunities embedded inEHR data, Hanson said. "We're seeing a lot of interest from medical students and residents whobelieve they have models we should be experimenting with. Not surprisingly the younger peoplein training are the ones with the ideas about how we can take advantage of data to improvecare," Hanson said.

IT will have to be prepared to support those doctors, Restuccia noted. "It's going to become thenorm. I am not a clinician, but it seems to me that, in the past, practicing medicine was as muchan art as a science," he said. "The answers are in the data. The art is how you apply the data,and now clinicians have more data than ever before. "

2016-05-02 19:57 Curtis Franklin www.informationweek.com

18 FedEx Services Eases The Pain Of Customs Clearance

As anyone who has traveled across borders can attest, clearing customs is not always thequickest or easiest part of the journey. So, too, for packages large and small that are importedor exported between countries.

Customs regulations for shipments vary by country and can present a considerable challenge forany businesses involved in the importing and exporting of goods.

FedEx Services set out in May 2011 on a project that aimed to make it easier for its businesscustomers to navigate customs. The project, called Clearance Customer Profile (CCP), isdesigned to accelerate the passage of FedEx shipments through customs agencies. FedEx

Services, with about 12,500 employees, provides IT, sales, andmarketing support for sibling FedEx Corp. subsidiaries FedExExpress and FedEx Ground.

FedEx customers must provide information to local customsagencies about goods being imported or exported. Back in 2011,that information was stored in a variety of FedEx systems and wasn'talways easily accessible.

Each country or region would have its own system, an inefficientapproach that often required FedEx personnel to contact customersand consignees to obtain the information required by customsofficials.

"Basically, we had a very real problem in that we couldn't keep upwith the demands of the customs clearance space because we weresupporting too many local systems that did the same thing," said

Paul Rivera, VP and CIO for FedEx Latin America, in a phone interview. "The systems weren'tconnected, and the information didn't flow or update accordingly. "

The IT team recognized the complexity of managing disparate systems and brought the matterto the attention of corporate leadership, Rivera said. With strong support from the company'sbusiness units, FedEx Services made a plan to address the issue on an enterprise level.

CCP debuted in April 2015, and by June it served 11 countries. The project involved FedExteam members from various departments in the US, Canada, and Latin America/Caribbean.Participants representing international clearance operations, brokerage entry filing operations,customer service, global trade services, and sales organizations were involved. Team membershelped define the business requirements and participated in the user acceptance testing prior tolaunching each component. Regional legal teams were also involved to ensure compliance withlocal laws.

CCP securely stores customs clearance instructions, product details, tax identification numbers,approved brokers, and images of regulatory documents such as powers of attorney, licenses,and permits. It supports five authentication levels that provide varying degrees of informationaccess: Guest, Limited User, Broker User, Normal User, and Super User.

"We are proud of the team's work on the Clearance Customer Profile," said Rob Carter,executive VP and CIO of FedEx Corp., in an email statement. "The CCP is a direct product ofour internal IT transformation and simplification initiative and a great example of IT workingclosely with our internal partners to meet corporate goals and add value to the business. "(Editor's note: Carter is a member of InformationWeek's CIO Advisory Board.)

Through its service-oriented architecture (SOA), CCP allows various FedEx systems around theworld to obtain up-to-date information for customs clearance. To communicate with oldersystems ill-suited to SOA, CCP can provide notifications over the company's messaginginfrastructure to maintain the accuracy of records.

CCP relies on a variety of technologies, including J2EE, Hibernate, Oracle Database, Spring,Tibco JMS infrastructure, monitoring tools like HP OpenView Monitor and AppDynamics,Symphony tools, and internal FedEx development processes.

But this isn't a story about specific tools. "The real power is not the individual technologies, buthow we're assembled them into a more flexible IT systems model," said Rivera. "The power is inthe way we used them to solve a problem. "

At the moment, CCP is used internally, and what the customer sees on the other end is thecompany's ability to clear packages more efficiently. And that's no small thing. Rivera recountedthe words of an executive he spoke with four years ago: "In transportation companies, you winand lose in clearance. "

Nevertheless, FedEx Services is working to expose CCP to external customers for self-service."It's a much better experience for a customer to self-manage that," Rivera said.

The project has allowed FedEx to retire six of its twenty-six country- or region-specific profilesystems, resulting in approximately $60,000 in savings on annual IT maintenance costs and$80,000 in savings annually in customer communications support costs. It also advances thecompany toward its goal of retiring its mainframe systems.

Beyond the typical obstacles of dealing with a global project, one of the biggest challenges forthe project team was scope. "When designing enterprise-level systems, you have to be veryintentional about what should or should not be included," Rivera said.

Rather than reproducing all the features found in legacy systems, said Rivera, the team workedto make the system modular and flexible. That makes it well-suited for handling regionalrequirements. As an example, he pointed to India, where clearance rules and regulations aremanaged at the state level, and relevant information has to be available for re-use at multiplepoints. CCP has been a boon for the company's 400,000 customers.

It has reduced the average amount of time required to clear a shipment through customs by 20to 40 minutes on a daily basis. This, in turn, has trimmed the amount of time shipments spend inbonded warehouses and the associated storage fees. With a 10% reduction in held shipments,FedEx has seen 16% fewer disputed invoices and customer issues. That translates tosomewhere between $25,000 and $175,000 in annual savings, the company estimated. Riverastressed the importance of listening to team members. "Many ideas are born out of necessity,"he said.

The project has paid off in terms of customer satisfaction and retention. FedEx Services saidthat customers have become familiar with CCP and now ask to be included in the database,knowing that inclusion will ease the transit of their shipments. Richard Smith, VP of global tradeservices for FedEx Express, is responsible for global clearance and regulatory compliancefunctions. In an email, he explained that FedEx is transforming its IT systems from one-off projectsolutions to systems that can be utilized across the enterprise. "The best advice that I can give toa CIO or IT leader is to look at systems from the outside in, as opposed to inside out," saidSmith. "Design them with the customer in mind, whether that customer is internal (i.e.,operations), external, or both. This will ultimately lead to a more elegant and flexible solution, ascustomer needs are varied and often rapidly changing. "

2016-05-02 19:54 Thomas Claburn www.informationweek.com

19 Google Acquires Synergese, A Virtual Coach For Apps Users

Google just bought a virtual coach to whip Appsusers into better shape.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet giantsaid Monday it has acquired Synergyse, aCanadian startup that offers a training platformfor Google's popular cloud-based officeproductivity suite. Financial details of the dealwere not disclosed.

Google will eventually offer all its Apps customersSynergese's virtual coach at no charge natively inApps, the popular suite of Software-as-a-Servicetools including Gmail, Docs, Drive and Maps.

[Related: Google Guaranteed: 8 Google For Work Recommended Cloud Apps ]

Synergese was founded in 2013 near Toronto. The startup sells a Chrome extension that

implements the tutoring functionality, helping customers maximize their productivity and stay upto date with new releases and product enhancements.

According to a blog posted by Peter Scocimara, senior director of operations for Google Apps,customers using Synergyse, on average, see 35 percent higher adoption across the cloudsuite's products.

That means "those organizations are more likely to be productive, collaborative and embracedigital transformation," Scocimara said.

The Synergese capabilities will become a native feature in Apps later in the year. Whileintegration work is under way, customers can download Synergese's Chrome extension for free,he said.

Nicky Parseghian, director of engineering at Los Angeles-based Google partner SADASystems , told CRN that deep integration of the training solution with Gmail, Calendar, Drive andHangouts will drive Apps adoption "to the next level. "

SADA has been working with Synergyse since 2013, using the platform to offer its customers anoption for self-paced training, Parseghian said.

By integrating the training solution into the core Apps suite, Google demonstrates that it'sfocused on eliminating a typical burden for IT solution providers -- supporting customers whileenabling their users to discover and leverage tools they may have overlooked because theywere unfamiliar with them.

2016-05-02 19:45 Joseph Tsidulko www.crn.com

20 Qlik Moves To Expand Partner Program Beyond License

Sales To Include Services, Subscription RevenueBusiness intelligence software developer Qlik is expanding the scope of itspartner program beyond software license sales to include working withpartners to grow their service offerings and software subscription revenue.

The new partner initiatives come as Qlik itself seeks to grow beyond its rootsas a developer of a single data-visualization software product into a provider

of broader business analytics platforms and services.

Qlik channel and marketing executives, addressing partners at the company's Qonnections2016 customer and partner conference in Orlando, Fla., on Monday, also outlined additions tothe company's partner program, including new specializations and certifications, deal protectionand market development funds.

[Related: 2016 Big Data 100: 50 Coolest Business Analytics Vendors ]

"The business is growing and accelerating and we want to see that continue," said MarkThurmond, Qlik executive vice president of worldwide sales and services, addressing a sessionof hundreds of Qlik partners. "We have a huge opportunity in front of us. "

The business analytics software market will reach $16.9 billion this year, Thurmond said, citingGartner forecasts, and grow to $21.4 billion by 2020.

Qlik, based in Radnor, Pa., has some 1,700 channel partners which accounted for 55 percent ofthe company's $327 million in license sales in 2015 -- a percentage that grew to 63 percent inthis year's first quarter, Thurmond said. Overall the company's indirect sales grew 26 percent in2015.

Thurmond said OEM sales of Qlik software for custom analytical applications and embeddedanalytics have also been growing at a rapid clip.

Qlik executives made it clear they want that channel growth to continue and the expansion of thepartner program is a critical element of that. Word went out to Qlik's sales representatives inJanuary that engaging with partners and building "solid business plans" with the channel was apriority, according to Thurmond.

"We are continuously tuning how we engage with you in order to win more market share and winthat market share faster," said Toni Adams, who became Qlik's channel chief in November. "Weare looking to reward you and help you build your business around licenses as well as yourservices business. "

"Services consulting is the big driver for our business," said Joseph DeSiena, president ofconsulting services for Bardess Group, a Qlik partner based in Mendham, N. J.

2016-05-02 19:39 Rick Whiting www.crn.com

21 Intel's Atom architecture to live on despite smartphone chip

cancellationsIntel's Atom processor architecture will live on despite the recent cancellationof next-generation smartphone chips.

The chip maker will continue the development and use of the processorarchitecture, which stresses power efficiency, though the chips may notnecessarily carry the Atom label. Last week Intel canceled upcoming Atomsmartphone chips code-named Broxton and Sofia.

The next-generation Atom architecture, code-named Goldmont, will first appear in futurePentium and Celeron processors, code-named Apollo Lake, an Intel spokeswoman said.Current top-line Atom chips are based on an architecture named Airmont.

The decision to redirect Goldmont initially to another brand reflects Intel's preference to chasehigh-priority markets. The Pentium and Celeron chips will be used in productivity tablets,hybrids, low-cost PCs and Chromebooks.

Goldmont was supposed to be the centerpiece of Broxton. The chip maker also cancelled Sofia3GX, Sofia LTE and Sofia LTE2 chips, which were targeted at low-cost smartphones andtablets.

Intel put the smartphone chips on the chopping block as it reshapes operations following anannouncement last month that it would cut 12,000 jobs.

There will also be no next-generation Atom chips for tablets. The Goldmont-based Apollo Lakewill succeed the Atom tablet chip code-named Cherry Trail, which is now more than a year old.

The company it will keep the existing Cherry Trail and Sofia chips on the market to support tabletcustomers, the Intel spokeswoman said.

The Atom architecture will continue to have broad coverage, just not in smartphones, said DeanMcCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research.

"Atom is anything but dead," McCarron said, adding the architecture is key to the company'sfuture in low-power devices.

The Goldmont architecture could appear in chips for Internet of Thing devices and also servers.Atom chips are already being used in communications and storage hardware, and those toocould be targets, McCarron said.

Intel mobile strategy now revolves mainly around 5G technology, which will bring significantlyfaster mobile connectivity to a wide range of devices. Intel will make front- and back-end devicesto drive 5G network deployments, which are expected to start around 2020.

2016-05-02 19:38 Agam Shah www.itnews.com

22 EMC World: Michael Dell Says Dell-EMC Is Gaining Ground

Against Shrinking, Less Innovative HPDell Inc. Chairman and CEO Michael Dell on Monday used his EMC Worldkeynote address to attack rival Hewlett Packard, saying his company isstealing market share from an HP that produces less revenue, less innovationand less investment in R&D.

Dell accused Hewlett Packard, which split into HP Inc. and Hewlett PackardEnterprise last November, of slashing R&D spending at the expense of innovation.

"They're getting smaller, they're separating their edge from their core with far less revenue, lessinnovation, less investment in R&D, less software, a smaller supply chain and losing share ineach of their businesses to Dell," said Dell.

[Related: EMC World: Tucci Passes Torch To Dell]

Dell's shot at HP came while his company is in the midst of acquiring storage market leaderEMC in a $60 billion deal -- the largest in IT history.

Dell said its clear "who's winning and who's losing" from market share data. He pointed to PCmarket share data from researcher IDC that shows Dell's client business in the United Statesgrew 4 percent year over year in the first quarter, while HP's declined 14 percent. Dell gained2.5 points of market share in the quarter, while HP lost 2.4 points of share, according to IDC.

The stats Dell cited put his company on top of the U. S. PC market for the first time in more thansix years. That success came despite overall market declines. According to IDC data, the U. S.PC market shrunk 6 percent in the first quarter. The worldwide PC market contracted 11.5percent in the same period.

"You can't shrink your way to success -- that's not even a real thing. But [HP is] doing it," Dellsaid.

"We're going in the opposite direction: building scale, while fostering speed, agility andinnovation," Dell said. "By combining Dell and EMC, we can become the essential technologyinfrastructure for the next industrial revolution. "

Dell itself spends far less on R&D than either EMC or HP and HPE. In a February Securities andExchange Commission filing, Dell said it spent $1.27 billion on research, development andengineering for the fiscal year ended Jan. 29, 2016, a 2.4 percent year-over-year increase.

2016-05-02 18:57 Matt Brown www.crn.com

23 The Elite 100: Celebrating The People Who Make IT Happen

The InformationWeek Elite 100 tracks the IT practices of the nation's most innovativeorganizations and examines their business practices across core areas of operations, includingtechnology deployment, IT budgets, business technology infrastructure, and strategies.

In reviewing the hundreds of submissions for our 28th annual ranking, we were impressed withthe level of transformation happening in IT organizations across every industry sector. We seecreative new uses of machine-to-machine and Internet of Things technologies. We see big dataand real-time analytics being applied in ways that directly influence business decision-making.

We see predictive analytics being used, quite literally, to save lives. We see applications beingapplied to global operations in ways that advance the speed of business. And we see digitalservices that are helping companies completely replace old business models.

To talk about technology transforming businessonly tells part of the story, though. At the end ofthe day, it's the people behind the technology whoare truly the agents of change. And that's wherethe most exciting shifts are happening. Designthinking is being applied to the creation of digitalgoods and services. The customer-first approachto IT undertakings is becoming universal. Atransformation is happening in the skill sets andexpertise being tapped to develop new productsand services.

That's not to say all is rainbows and unicorns inthe world of IT. The pace of change has introduced new challenges -- such as managing aninfrastructure that incorporates everything from mainframes to advanced mobile APIs. It’s putprofound pressure on enterprise CIOs.

In this year's survey of our Elite 100, we asked an open-ended question about the biggestmistakes made this year, and the 92 responses we received offer a treasure trove of learning.Here are some of the mistakes shared, which serve as a microcosm of very real IT pain points:

These and other challenges aside, what we're celebrating today is the remarkable ability of ITorganizations to adapt to a rapidly changing environment at an unprecedented pace. With ourElite 100 rankings, we pause to acknowledge the remarkable achievements of the people whomake IT happen.

2016-05-02 18:31 Susan Nunziata www.informationweek.com

24 Industry Spotlight: Build performance tests into code

Agile software teams can’t afford to clog their code pipelines with antiquatedtesting practices. While many shops have moved to Continuous Integrationand Continuous Delivery, they also need Continuous Testing capabilities toachieve a continuous ecosystem.

“Testing is no longer just about ensuring quality. It’s a gateway that allows youto move from one stage within your continuous process to another with confidence,” said AlonGirmonsky, CEO of BlazeMeter.

BlazeMeter, which is well known for its open-source-based continuous performance testingcapabilities, recently added enhanced functionality so developers can run performance testsand API-based functional tests as part of their Continuous Integration and Delivery processes.

“The industry is moving to an era where everything is continuous. It’s continuous because you’reconstantly moving from development to production in a relatively short time, but the shift tocontinuous practices has its challenges,” said Girmonsky. “You need different tools andinfrastructure to support it. Tools like Jenkins, TeamCity, Bamboo as well as tools like AWSCodePipeline help you connect continuous integration and delivery with continuous testing.”

Master Continuous Integration processes

Continuous Testing is a vital part of an end-to-end continuous process. Rather than being adistinct step somewhere between a build and a release candidate, Continuous Testing, whenintegrated into the entire process, helps speed software delivery. It also helps ensure thereliability of code as it moves through the pipeline.

For example, before code is committed to a repository, it has to be tested. If the code passesthe tests, it gets committed. If it doesn’t, it has to be fixed. When testing is used as a gateway tocheck code into the repository, as enabled by BlazeMeter, developers can be confident that the

code they commit will not break something else in the repository.

Continuous Testing also helps developers avoid broken builds. When Continuous Testing isused during each phase of software development, it helps ensure the stability of the next stage.Finally, the release candidate is tested so it can be deployed or not as necessary.

“We took it upon ourselves to make the process of testing easy and well-integrated into theecosystem,” said Girmonsky. “Because we integrate with GitHub, Jenkins, and other tools, itmakes sense to be part of the process.”

By simplifying testing and integrating BlazeMeter into familiar tools, more people on thesoftware team can take advantage of continuous testing—not just DevOps or QA engineers—but also developers within the engineering teams.

“Essentially, we’re enabling an entirely new way to improve the outcomes of your continuousprocesses,” said Girmonsky. “It’s groundbreaking in its simplicity. You can build tests as you go—such as while you’re building your code—and get the instant verification you need. In the past,you’d have to wait for a performance engineer to add the verification to his to-do list and tocheck afterwards to ensure nothing breaks.”

Why performance testing is important

Adding performance testing to Continuous Integration reduces the risk of performancedegradations when new features are added or a bug is fixed. For example, if the latest commitinadvertently causes sluggish response time, the continuous integration system will automaticallymark the build as “failed.” The alert makes it very easy to identify the cause of a problem andwho is responsible for it. When performance tests are run in the early stages of softwaredevelopment, it is easier to find and fix the issue.

“Everything needs to happen automatically behind the scenes,” said Girmonsky. “If you’re adeveloper, you don’t even need to be aware of the suite of tools that are running in thebackground to make it all happen.”

With BlazeMeter, developers can spend as little time as possible away from their IDEs. Withinthe IDE, they can build their tests and make sure the tests run in time—all in a matter of minutes.

“This is a really serious enhancement to our product. What we’ve had up until now is a suite oftools, each of which does something to address a certain use case,” said Girmonsky. “Now wehave a framework that allows you to use a human readable and writable language. With thislanguage, you can define what your tests look like, when you want them to run, and what it meansif a test fails, and what the criteria is for failing a test.”

Automation is critical

Software teams need the ability to run hundreds of tests at each stage of the software life cycle,and there’s no time to do it manually. BlazeMeter automates tests based on human-suppliedcriteria so organizations don’t have to sacrifice speed or efficiency. In fact, they can improveboth.

“When we were building systems in a waterfall fashion, we were releasing software every fewmonths or every year. In that case, it made sense to treat testing as an event, and as part of theevent, you’d create the test, run it, analyze it and invest a lot of time because it was only requiredevery few months,” said Girmonsky. “In an agile environment, the event can happen every minuteso you don’t have the time to write scripts and run manual tests.”

BlazeMeter builds tests automatically and programmatically generates the tests in real time,according developer-defined specifications.

“Developers create the specification, but the tests automatically generate themselves just beforethey need to run,” said Girmonsky. “This is one of the major value-adds you get with BlazeMeter.”One-up the competition

Many organizations have become agile to stay competitive in today’s dynamic business world.With Continuous Integration popular and more organizations adding Continuous Delivery to themix, they are continuing to become even more agile. However, without continuous testing, it’sentirely possible to accelerate the delivery of brittle code that doesn’t scale or perform well.

“Today, you need to rethink your testing strategy to adapt to this new age. It involves runningliterally a hundred times more tests than you used to, and you need to do it in an automatedfashion,” said Girmonsky. “You can’t use people; it needs to be machine-driven. On the otherhand, the machines aren’t smart enough to actually generate the tests you need.”

BlazeMeter combines the best of both worlds by enabling developers to define tests and theircriteria so the tests can run automatically in the background. Better still, BlazeMeter helpssoftware teams think differently about testing so they can continue to improve the effectivenessof their continuous processes.

“Testing is not a one-time event. It’s continuous,” said Girmonsky. “Continuous Testing has to bepart of the ecosystem because there are Jenkins and other systems in place that serve as aconveyor belt of the new IT.”

DevOps teams use BlazeMeter to quickly and easily run open-source-based performance teststhat ensure the delivery of high-performance software. As part of the continuous ecosystem,BlazeMeter can instantly test against any mobile app, website, or API, at any size or scale tovalidate performance at every stage of software development.

The rapidly growing BlazeMeter community comprises more than 100,000 developers, many ofwhom work at global brands such as Adobe, Atlassian, The Gap, NBC Universal, Pfizer, andWalmart.

“Load and performance testing should be part of every software delivery workflow, from legacymonolithic apps to continuously delivered microservices,” said Girmonsky. “We generate testtraffic from cloud-based locations around the world, so your tests reflect real-world conditionsand do not break in unpredictable ways.”

Learn more at www.blazemeter.com .

2016-05-02 17:45 Lisa Morgan sdtimes.com

25 Industry Spotlight: Beautiful mobile apps happen when

design and development are equalsIs your enterprise prepared to surf the wave ofenterprise omnichannel software developmentthat’s now on the horizon? The surge in mobiledemand comes thanks to a vast and expandinguniverse of devices, from tablets to smartphonesto wearables and sensors, and the saturation ofconsumer app markets. Gartner forecasts thatover the next two years, most IT organizations willstruggle to release software at even a fifth of thepace of accelerating demand. Without anomnichannel app strategy in place, mostenterprises will fumble and fail in their attempts torelease high-performing apps with consumer-quality user experiences.

User experience comes first

Mobile applications have an extremely high abandonment rate. Get the user experience wrong,and you’ll often never get that user back. While enterprise omnichannel apps may have been

able to mandate employee usage in the past, today’s bring-your-own-device environment andthe pace of innovation makes having secure, efficient and delightful apps a requirement forsuccess.

While developers with JavaScript or native skill sets can code rich interaction flows, thoserequirements usually come earlier in the process, from designers responding to stakeholders. Inthe fast-paced mobile world, how do you get more iterative? For most designers, a native app isstill a black box, so many mobile efforts all too often fall back on legacy processes from the Web1.0: creating wire frames, style guides and images, and submitting them to development.

“You build all this in a very waterfall process and it’s all very throwaway. The whole cycle isextended to weeks or months, and it’s never going to match the requirements—and thedeveloper has to struggle to reflect the designer’s intentions. Meanwhile, you have no users. Youdon’t even know if this is what they want,” said Ed Gross, Orlando-based Vice President,Product Management for Austin and Hyderabad-based Kony Solutions.

Tools for mobile flourish

The design/development dichotomy began to change with Web 2.0. New web design andprototyping started to emerge, including Axure, Balsamiq, Dreamweaver, Omigraffle, Macawand many more. These offered a better workflow for Web design and development, opening upthe capability to create rich prototypes and templates for developers. Today, a similar set oftooling choices are beginning to flourish around mobile. It’s likely that enterprise app needs willpush the industry toward a more mature set of truly cross-platform processes for appdevelopment.

One such solution is Kony Visualizer 7.0, the visual application design and development solutionfor Kony’s Mobility Platform for phone, tablet, Web, or connected devices. The new release,which enables cross-platform mobile app development, also supports voice input for AppleWatch apps or intelligent control of smart homes using new Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities.

Underlying native cross-platform APIs lets developers focus on improving omni-channel appproductivity and life cyclse without needing prohibitively deep development skill sets for eachtechnology.

“Legacy tool sets give designers access to bare metal. Others, like Xamarin, provide all theAPIs for C# developers. What we do is different: It’s truly cross-platform, providing the simplicityof Javascript development and design tools,” said Gross. Achieving a true code-design balancein a single rapid prototyping platform means that developers can build apps using either low-code visual techniques or drop into full JavaScript development. Meanwhile, with unique tools toshare native prototypes and app designs with real-time app previews and annotation supportmeans that stakeholders can give feedback on the apps as they progress.

Doing the front-end work

While many mobile tools are developer-oriented, not designer oriented, many developers don’twant to do the front-end work. That’s what’s unique about Kony’s Visualizer value proposition:Designers can hook into all the underlying drawing SDKs and implement the front end in concertwith developers or prior to handing it off them. With the Masters framework, application UX andlogical assets can be reused and instantiated across phone, tablet, and desktop, providing asignificant boost in design and development productivity. New in Visualizer 7.0, an extension forPhotoshop CC, converts all of the layers, along with layer styles, to a Visualizer project, savingtime, and rendering bulky style guides and documentation obsolete.

Democratizing app development is key

With so much at stake and so many form and usability factors to consider inmobile/wearable/sensor/tablet app development, enterprises can ill afford to isolateomnichannel development teams from designers, users and stakeholders. Rather, now is anopportunity to develop omnichannel centers of excellence as apps are launched, tested and

improved in rapid iteration.

“I like to home in on how Visualizer is better connecting the business and developers: Gettinguse cases out, selling them to the business, for all devices—mobile, phone, tablet, desktop—without relying on development having to redo the design. They have all the front end of that appdone for them,” said Gross.

As an example, one customer, a major Asian airline, used Kony to develop all its mobile in-flightcustomer applications. They were able to get apps into production quickly, then test them forusage patterns before iterating again. That continuous improvement process won’t happen ifsub-par applications become the norm.

A fan of the book City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition by James Howard Kunstler, Grossthinks there’s a parallel to today’s omnichannel app development imperative. Kunstler examinesdiverse cities from classical Rome and Napoleonic Paris to the tangled sprawl of Las Vegas.“The pedestrian nightmares of some cities are the unintended consequences of a top-downdesigner working without an end user in mind,” according to Gross. In contrast, “The Holy Grail ofapp development would be to enable upstream folks in the process—designers, businessowners, and business analysts—to be empowered to participate in the design and developmentprocess. I use our tools every day. The more we can collaborate and share the same technologyplatform, the better and more efficient the whole process becomes. Getting the businessprocess in front of user as early on as possible is so important. That’s going to have a hugeimpact on creating centers of excellence around omnichannel application development,” Grosssaid.

Five tips for enterprise omnichannel development

Enterprise mobile and wearable apps face a slew of different requirements beyond simpleusability, from user privacy and security to data collection and integration. Here’s what toconsider in an omnichannel development platform:

1. Middleware hooks. For enterprises, no omnichannel app is an island: It’s critical to connectmobile apps to middleware fabric, including mobile backend as a service (MBaaS) if needed.

2. Microservices architectures. An app services model connects to the front end with javascriptor another language and provides access to back end data.

3. Up-front API management. Creating APIs is another key consideration as part of front-enddesign activities.

4. Device-specific functionality. New devices and native UI elements should be easilyaccessible. Visualizer lets teams visually build Apple Watch apps, use new iOS device APIs likeWatchKit and HealthKit and work with the Windows 10 Universal Windows Platform.

5. Security. Finally, enterprise software development governance requires reliable securityprotocols and technologies to protect source code and business logic, obfuscate control flowand use appropriate cryptography to block static and runtime attacks.

2016-05-02 17:39 Alexandra Weber sdtimes.com

26 Cirrity's 'Game-Changing' Buy-In-Bulk Cloud Pricing Meant

To Help Partners Up Cloud MarginsCloud service provider Cirrity is changing up the way channel partners buy andresell cloud by allowing its partners to potentially double their cloud margins.

The Atlanta-based channel-only provider has unveiled its new cloud pricingmodel that will let partners buy its Cisco-powered cloud infrastructure in bulkand white label the services for their own end customers.

Cirrity is piloting its new cloud pricing model with one of its large managed services providerpartners, Onepath, which has been able to decrease its monthly cloud spend while increasing itsprofitability, according to the provider.

[Related: Cirrity CEO On AWS' 'Arcane' Pricing, Carrier Turmoil And Helping Partners CrackThe Cloud Code ]

"Under the new model, we are expecting to double our cloud margins," said Sean Vojtasko,executive vice president of advanced technology and managed services for Marietta, Ga.-basedOnepath.

Onepath knew it needed to get into cloud services, but because the provider has very large endcustomers and requires a lot of infrastructure, Onepath didn't want to pay a cloud provider on a"per drink" basis, which quickly adds up, Vojtasko said.

"We needed a solution were we could really gain the benefits of aggregating the compute andstorage into a price and be able to get a volume discount as opposed to taking things at costand building our own infrastructure," he said.

The unique wholesale cloud pricing model is focused on "sophisticated resellers," like managedservices providers and strategic service providers. These providers will be able to buy bulkcloud services from Cirrity, and then repackage the services under their own label with their ownmanaged services wrapper, according to Cirrity CEO Steven Vicinanza.

"Partners won't be buying cloud by the server -- they can buy, for example, 500 servers and sellthem on a one-off basis to individual customers," Vicinanza said. "This allows them to capturethat margin. "

While many cloud players don't cater to solution providers, Cirrity's channel-only approach to themarket coupled with its latest wholesale cloud pricing option for partners give Cirrity's partnersaccess to a solution set they haven't had access to before, as well as a way to possibly doubletheir cloud margins, Vicinanza said.

"We think it's a game changer for the folks who are able to take advantage. … If we are able tooffer something that can offer additional margin, that really gets the reseller base excited," hesaid.

2016-05-02 17:01 Gina Narcisi www.crn.com

27 Intel Adds Crystal Well-based Skylake-R Processors: 65W

with 128MB eDRAMIntel has added three new microprocessors forembedded and highly-integrated applicationsinto its lineup. The new CPUs are based on theSkylake microarchitecture and feature high-performance integrated graphics cores with anadded eDRAM cache called Crystal Well. Thenew products should offer high performance inmemory bandwidth applications due to Skylake’supdated 2nd generation cache architecture.

In red is the 4+4e die with 128MB eDRAM

The chips that Intel has added to its price list arethe Core i7-6785R, the Core i5-6685R, and the Core i5-6585R. The new processors aredesigned to fit in all-in-one PCs, small form-factor and other types of highly-integrated PCs thatcan satisfy the 65W TDP over the mobile Crystal Well variants that run at 45W. The new desktopchips from Intel are based on the Skylake-H silicon in its most advanced configuration: with four

general-purpose cores as well as the GT4e integrated graphics. Not all the specifications of theprocessors are known at this point, but we are talking about quad-core processors withGeneration 9 Iris Pro graphics and 72 execution units (as well as 128 MB of eDRAM), a dual-channel DDR4-2133 memory controller, a PCI Express 3.0 interface and three display outputs.The power consumption of Intel’s new embedded products for desktops does not exceed 65 W,which is typical for R-series offerings, and offer a potential upgrade path by OEMs for anyequivalent systems that used an equivalent Broadwell-based R-series processor.

Intel unveiled its Skylake-H silicon in its full glory earlier this year when it released its mobileXeon E3 v5 processors with the Iris Pro Graphics P580 .

Several makers of industrial computer modules (such as Congatec ) already use chips like theIntel Xeon E3-1515M v5 for their products, which is why we know what they look like. The die ofthe Skylake-H processor looks rather long and the lion’s portion of its transistor budget wasspent on the mammoth iGPU. The extra on package die is the eDRAM, and the siliconunderneath the CPU is the chipset (it's the Y/U series CPUs that have integrated chipsets).

The new parts feature higher clock rates compared to the Broadwell processors, althoughslightly lower than their K series counterparts. The processors have a number of importantarchitectural improvements which will affect the performance of these CPUs in real-worldapplications. It is interesting to note that Intel retained the full L3 cache size in its new R-seriesCPUs: in the Broadwell models part of the L3 was disabled, but the new Skylake parts are nowin line with their i7 and i5 naming. This means that the i7-6785R has 8 MB of L3, similar to thei7-6700K, and the i5-6685R/6585R has 6 MB of L3, similar to the i5-6600K.

Intel’s Skylake processors feature an upgraded microarchitecture with better parallelism andimproved IPC, which means better performance almost across-the-board. An importantcapability of Skylake is its Speed Shift technology, which can quickly increase frequency for ashort amount of time in a bid to rapidly perform an operation (~1-3 microseconds rather than 30-100 without Speed Shift), thus providing better user experience and ultimately saving power.Intel’s Speed Shift requires support by the operating system and right now Microsoft’s Windows10 can take advantage of the technology in a bid to improve its responsiveness.

Another important aspect of Intel’s Skylake CPUs with high-end iGPUs is their eDRAM, whichmeans the processors also gain the code name 'Crystal Well'. The eDRAM for Skylake isdifferent to that found in previous Crystal Well implementations: in the last generation, theeDRAM acted as a victim cache to the L3 cache, meaning that evicted cache lines from L3would add up in the eDRAM and be quick for re-reading without having to access main memory.The downside to this is that data could not end up in eDRAM without being used first, givinginitial data read latencies the same performance as previous processors. Ultimately this is stillgood for graphics and gaming, where textures are re-read from memory frequently. The newarrangement for the eDRAM in these Skylake processors has placed the eDRAM in a differentpart of the chain, between the System Agent and the DDR memory. This means that the eDRAMacts as a DRAM buffer, with 50 Gbps bandwidth in each direction to the LLC, but is alsoaccessible for early reads/writes by any device that needs memory access through the systemagent (i.e. anything through PCIe). Previously this was not possible, but now it means thatSkylake's eDRAM implementation should offer a speedup in many more scenarios that before.

The final noteworthy improvement of the Skylake processors compared to previous-generationofferings is revamped graphics core as well as increased amount of execution units. Based onour findings last year, real-world performance of Intel's high-end Iris Pro 6200 graphics core(Broadwell’s top iGPU) is higher than that of entry-level discrete graphics cards. Meanwhile, thehighest-performing GT4e graphics core of Intel Skylake contains 72 EUs, up from 48 in the caseof the Broadwell. Compute performance of Intel's contemporary top-of-the-range iGPU (Iris Pro580) is around 1.1 TFLOPS depending on its frequency, so, this one should be tangibly fasterthan its predecessor. Last, but not least, Skylake’s iGPU has a revamped multimedia engine,which supports hardware decoding and encoding of UHD videos using HEVC or VP9 codecs.

Intel’s new Core i7-6785R, Core i5-6685R, and Core i5-6585R are already available at a tray

price of $370, $288 and $255 respectively. Partners of the chipmaker will likely use the newprocessors to build their new systems in the coming months.

Image Sources: Congatec , Intel's IDF presentations .

2016-05-02 16:30 Anton Shilov www.anandtech.com

28 Exabeam Channel Chief: Here's Why Partners Should Boost

Their Security Strategy With User Behavior AnalyticsOpportunities In The UBA Market

The market for User Behavior Analytics (UBA) is gainingsteam in the security space, expected to jump to $200million by the end of 2017. That's up from around $50million today, according to Gartner. For partners, thismarket presents a massive opportunity for new streamsof revenue, said Ted Plumis, vice president of channels,business and corporate development at Exabeam, aSan Mateo, Calif.-based user behavior analyticscompany. In an interview with CRN, Plumis outlinedsome of the growth the company, which worked 100percent with the channel, is seeing in the space and whatbusiness models partners are following to drive the mostsuccess around UBA. Take a look at what he had to say.

2016-05-02 16:30 Sarah Kuranda www.crn.com

29 Oculus Rift demos go on the road starting May 7

Oculus announced a program today that shouldallow more potential VR customers to get somehands-on time with the company's Rift headset.Starting May 7, some Best Buy stores will havethe Oculus Rift in stock, both for purchase and asa demo.

Oculus says the demo will be available at 48 BestBuy locations to begin with. It'll include time in theOculus Dreamdeck , The Climb, and Farland VRdemos. That road show should be a greatopportunity for those of us who haven’t had a VR experience to get our feet wet without a hugedelay—or a huge investment. Given the hype-heavy past of VR and the difference in experiencethat it offers versus traditional PC gaming, it's probably important that Oculus gets as manypeople behind the virtual wheel as it can. Many skeptics may only re-evaluate their skepticismwhen they have the opportunity to try the system out for themselves.

Still, it's a bit odd to see Oculus offering retail units before fulfilling all of the preorders for the Rift.Some people who preordered the headset are sure to be miffed that someone could go into oneof these Best Buy locations and end up with a Rift before preorders are completed. Thecompany tries to temper this frustration by allowing people who pre-ordered the device topurchase a retail unit, cancel their preorder, and retain their preorder benefits. Oculus says onlyan "extremely limited" number of Rifts will be available through stores while preorders get caughtup, so it's not as if the headset is moving to general availability while pre-order customers areleft waiting.

The Rift will also be available through the Microsoft and Amazon online storefronts starting May

6, also in extremely limited quantities. Customers can map locations that offer the demo, andeven schedule a demo in advance through a site provided by Oculus.

2016-05-02 16:29 by Robert techreport.com

30 4 Techie Gift Ideas For Mother's Day

This Mother's Day, consider going above and beyond a bouquet and check outsome of our tech-centric gift ideas.

For instance: Nixplay offers a 7-inch, Wi-Fi-enabled, cloud-connected pictureframe that lets Mom create a customized playlist of photographs. The frameconnects through an iOS- and Android-compatible app, so there's no need for

a memory stick or card. The Nixplay Seed Frame starts at $100.

Similarly, Chatbooks lets Mom create a photo book from her social media accounts likeInstagram and Facebook. She can also upload smartphone shots through the free app. A 60-page, 6-by-6-inch photo book costs just $8.

The Mighty Clutch by Mighty Purse is a beautiful leather purse that doubles as a charger, with abuilt-in battery that can recharge phones to stay going up to twice as long. The clutch goes for$78, and is compatible with all MicroUSB smartphones and iPhones.

For the stylish working mom, take a look at Saddleback Leather's tablet bag. It offers astreamlined bag in four colors, and goes for $198.

2016-05-02 15:02 Meghan Ottolini www.crn.com

31 Antec's P9 Window is a mid-tower case with a view

Antec's newly minted P9 Window mid-tower caseprovides an unobstructed view of its interior through alarge side-panel window, as its name suggests. Visibleon the inside are cooling vents on the top, bottom, front,and back and tool-less expansion trays, bays, and slots.Not so obvious are the mounts for fans or radiators andhidden cable routing areas behind the motherboard tray.

The P9 Window has two removable 3.5" HDD cagesthat are stacked atop each other beneath the case'sthree 5.25" drive bays. Each cage has four combo 2.5"or 3.5" drive trays, and the cages can be independentlyremoved or adjusted to support liquid coolers. When thecages are removed, the P9 Window supports graphicscards up to 16.9" (430 mm) in length. Antec provides two2.5" storage mounting points behind the motherboardtray for folks who can live without mechanical storage. For cooling, three 120-mm or two 140-mm fans can fit at the top of the case, while another 120-mm fan can fit on a bottom mount.Those mounts augment the two front and one rear 120-mm fans that Antec includes. In additionto the tool-less cages, the case has three 5.25" bays and eight PCI expansion slots that are alsotool-less. Hidden inside the 5.25" bay is a bonus 3.5" HDD mount.

The P9 Window's cable management features could help builders create a clean anduncluttered interior view. The case includes black cable ties, cable-safe routing holes, and extraspace behind the motherboard for routing hidden cables. For that dust-free interior, the casealso features washable filters for the front fan and PSU air intakes. The front I/O ports include twofan controls, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, microphone input, audio output, and powerand reset buttons.

Here are the P9 Window's specifications in convenient tabular form:

The P9 Window isn't available yet, but Antec suggests a $109 price tag whenever it hits storeshelves.

2016-05-02 14:48 by Raymond techreport.com

32 A judge has partially dismissed Twitter's surveillance case

against the governmentOn Monday, a judge agreed with thegovernment's latter argument but denied itsrequest to shift the case to FISC.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers noted that theFirst Amendment does not allow someonesubject to secrecy obligations to discloseclassified information, so by failing to challengethe original classification, Twitter's FirstAmendment argument didn't stand up.

But she gave Twitter until May 24 to amend itslawsuit and make a case that the surveillance

requests are not classified information.

A longstanding ban was slightly relaxed in 2014 after the scope of U. S. government surveillancebecame clear though leaks by Edward Snowden. Companies are now allowed to reportrequests on a six-month delayed basis, in aggregate bands of 250 requests, but Twitter suedsaying that wasn't enough.

The government's attempt to make FISC the venue for the argument failed because Twitter isnot disputing an order or decision of the court. It's instead disputing the government'srequirement to report the number of requests received in aggregate bands, the judge wrote.

2016-05-02 14:21 Martyn Williams www.itnews.com

33 Facebook Messenger testing Snapchat-style disappearing

messages for iOSFacebook is considering a new feature so thatnot every message your send on its Messengerapp will live forever.

On Monday, screenshots revealed a potentialversion of Facebook Messenger on iOS whereusers can set a time-limit for their messages toremain visible after being sent. According to thescreenshots, Messenger users will have theoption to enable disappearing messages on theiOS app and set a time-limit for the messages todisappear after one minute, after 15 minutes,after one hour, after four hours, or after a day. Thescreenshots were posted on Twitter by @iOSAppChanges and were picked up by VentureBeat.

#Messenger disappearing messages feature (68.0 iOS version) @WABetaInfopic.twitter.com/dPSCyuNeoF

More screenshots about disappearing messages (and shared links section).

Thanks @Geek_Break . @WABetaInfo #Messenger pic.twitter.com/MDWjsqdhID

Most recently, Facebook’s other messaging app, WhatsApp, also got a privacy-boosting featurewhen it enabled end-to-end encryption for its billion-plus users. WhatsApp founders comparedthis new feature akin to having a face-to-face conversation: only the intended parties will get tolisten in.

If Facebook Messenger does enable disappearing messages in an upcoming iOS update, it willfollow a similar strategy—after all, verbal conversations are not typically recorded and archivedfor the rest of our lives. With the option to forever delete a message after it’s sent, Facebook isgiving users more control over their private communications. For the company, it makes it moredifficult to be put in a position to have to retrieve these messages if Facebook is ever embroiledin its own Apple/FBI-like battle.

2016-05-02 14:09 Oscar Raymundo www.itnews.com

34 14% off Fitbit Charge HR Wireless Activity Wristband - Deal

AlertTrack workouts, heart rate, distance, caloriesburned, floors climbed, active minutes, and stepswith the popular Fitbit Charge HR. Sync datawirelessly and automatically back to yourcomputer or smartphone, where it can be viewedand analyzed securely online. Fitbit Charge HRalso tracks your sleep, and can wake you with asilent alarm.

The unit averages 4 out of 5 stars on Amazonfrom over 24,000 people ( read reviews ). With aregular list price of $149.99, you can save $21and pick it up now for $128.71. See the

discounted Fitbit Charge HR Wireless Activity Wristband now on Amazon.

2016-05-02 13:40 DealPost Team www.itnews.com

35 Disney files patent for near instantaneous 3D printing

Disney Research has filed a patent for a 3Dprinting technology that uses high-intensity light toharden photo-sensitive resin in a single process,removing the need for layer-by-layer printing.

The patent describes a machine for printing in "anearly instantaneous manner. "

"Presently, 3D printing is extremely slow and timeconsuming. For example, it may take severalhours to print a single 3D object even if the 3Dobject is relatively small (e.g., several inches indiameter and four to 12 inches tall)," Disneystated in its patent filing. "The 3D printing process that uses conventional 3D printers... is limitedin its speed by the speed of the mechanism moving the print head to each new position on aprint layer. "

A side view of a 3D printer with one optical assembly providing a real image within a printchamger or vate of photocuring resin.

Similar to stereolithography (SLA) 3D printing, Disney's "3D Printing by Volumetric AdditionThrough Selective Curing of a Fluid Matrix" uses two or more high-intensity light beams toharden photosensitive resin.

Unlike SLA printers, however, Disney's proposed printer would not harden resin by drawing theoutline of an object layer-by-layer. Instead, the entire object would be projected into the center ofthe resin, creating a whole model at once.

The patent describes a "blue light" with a 450 nanometer (nm) wavelength, a "violet light" with a405nm wavelength and an "ultraviolet light" with a wavelength of 365nm. The 3D printer woulduse resins that cure with invisible wavelengths that are less affected by ambient light.

The photosensitive resin would also need to both absorb and transmit light at the curingwavelength. "The maximal curing depth determines the size of the largest object that can becured. Higher transmission results in a slower rate of curing," Disney wrote.

The printed object, which would be supported by the thick resin itself, could simply be lifted outonce it was finished.

"In several test operations, a 3D printer using photo-curing liquids has been proven effective ingenerating 3D objects in several minutes or less rather than several hours," the patent stated.

A functional block view showing another 3D printer using an optical assembly including arotating curved mirror to provide real images in a photo-curing resin.

The SLA printer is not Disney's first foray into additive manufacturing.

Disney Research filed a patent for a "Layered Fabric 3D Printer" that works like a fused filamentfabrication printer, but cuts out patterns using "off the shelf" fabrics. The layers of fabric are thenbonded using a heat sensitive adhesive.

Disney Research also filed a patent to limit unauthorized copying of its merchandise using a 3Dprinter that could authenticate the 3D or .stl (stereolithography) file.

"The digital file defines not only the outer shell of the 3D object but also defines a uniqueidentifier or identification (ID) element to be printed in the inner volume (within the outer shell) ofthe 3D object in one or more layers," Disney stated.

The ID element could be a passive radio frequency identification (RFID) tag that is embedded inthe 3D printed object.

2016-05-02 13:27 Lucas Mearian www.itnews.com

36 Why CEOs must go big in digital (or go home)

CEOs are unlikely to slash technology spendingin the face of weakening economies becausethey can't afford to impede crucial digitalbusiness initiatives required to serve customers,according to new research from Gartner. Thatbodes well for CIOs, who are accustomed toseeing budgets slashed as political unrest, fallingoil prices and other macro factors weigh on thebusiness.

"Those CEOs who see that the digital future isgoing to happen inexorably will protect digitalinitiatives and will cancel or cut other things

instead," says Mark Raskino, who surveyed 400 senior business leaders, including CEOs andCFOs of companies generating $1 billion in annual revenue, for " 2016 CEO Survey: The Year

of Digital Tenacity. "

Self-driving cars, blockchain and Internet of Things, is likely to render many industries nearlyunrecognizable within five years. Recognizing the pace of change and resulting disruption areaccelerating, many CEOs are making technology more of a core competency after years oftreating it as a commodity.

CEOs now expect technology to improve the bottom line. In fact, 84 percent of chief executivessurveyed said they expect digital change to bring higher profit margins. "One explanation forCEOs' optimistic attitude toward digital change may be because they can see how it helps withthe product innovations that matter to customers," Raskino says.

Raskino, who conducted his research in the fourth quarter of 2015, asked CEOs to list their toppriorities. Growth topped the list, with 54 percent of respondents citing it as their primary goal,the same percentage from the 2015 survey. However, "customer," vaulted to No. 2, with 31percent of respondents citing it as the second biggest priority, up from 21 percent in 2015.Focus on improving the workforce came in at 27 percent, up from 24 percent a year ago.

Raskino says CEOs acknowledgment that customer experience must be improved is anothersign of how economic weakness is shifting CEOs' focus. He advises CEOs to direct productand service development staff to embrace "design thinking," to build the best digitalexperiences possible. CEOs must ask product development and technical creatives to rankfeatures they can envision adding to improving the customer experience in digital services.

Starbucks provides a good example. The company's mobile app has been tremendouslysuccessful , with more than 17 million users worldwide. But its core functionality remained largelyunchanged for years until the coffee maker added the capability to allow consumers to order andpay from the app.

As CEOs work to improve customer relationships and workforce productivity CIOs have anopportunity to bolster their positions. Just a few years ago, the CIO was viewed as a cost center,a passive leader whose primary function was ensuring the financial systems and data centeroperated as expected. But CEOs accustomed to leading in an analog world are uncomfortablewith digital, so they will often delegate duties to the CIO, whose roles are evolving from back-office IT managers to more strategic leadership positions.

“CEOs now understand that digital business is substantial enough to warrant them leading itpersonally,” Raskino says. “If they delegate primary responsibility, then the next most likelyleader is the CIO.

And as the CEO grapples with managing the digital transition, the CIO often helps communicatewhat the digital value proposition means to human resources, product development, sales, legal,and risk and compliance leaders. "The CIO role is evolving to be a more progressive, agenda-setting role,” Raskino says.

Raskino also offered some cautionary advice for CEOs and CIOs. If economic conditionsdeteriorate further, companies could slip back into "old IT" behaviors, including slowed or haltedapprovals, budget bickering, biases toward cost-savings from revenue-generating projects andthe "false comfort," of waterfall software development and project management.

Raskino said CEOs and CIOs need to fight this temptation, and offered this analogy: "Try to usean economic slowdown as a racecar driver uses a curve -- head into it a bit more aggressivelyand accelerate out of it faster than your competitors. "

2016-05-02 13:15 Clint Boulton www.itnews.com

37 How ReST Simplifies Object Storage

One of the most important concepts we haven’t yet addressed here in our Red Hat Perspectivesseries on software-defined storage is simplicity, and the first place it shows up is in the

comparison among file storage, block storage, andobject storage architectures.

File storage is a hierarchical structure in which each fileis identified by describing the path to it -- what drive it ison, in what subdirectory, under what file name andextension, etc. Metadata is stored in the file systemdescribing who can access each file and other specifics.As more users grow to petabytes of data and millions offiles, file storage systems have proven not to scale verywell. This can become intricate and complex.

Block storage leaves the identification to the applicationand stores unidentifiable blocks of data with nometadata. Everything is tracked, located, and combinedinto files and called by the application, leaving totalresponsibility in the hands of developers. Since latency increases with block storage as thedistance between the application and the storage increases, most block storage use cases tendto remain localized.

The Simplicity Of Object Storage

Objects are data usually in the form of files that have been bundled with all of their metadata intoa container (sometimes referred to as a bucket), including such items as associatedapplication, importance, and required security level.

What keeps object storage simple is that one of the primary ways to access it uses ReSTfulapplication programming interfaces. No, this does not mean that using them quiets the mind andcalms the soul. Representational State Transfer (ReST) uses simple hypertext transport protocol(HTTP) commands such as PUT, GET, and DELETE. The bonus inherent in using HTTP is thatit was built to travel the Internet, making long distances between applications and datainconsequential. ReSTful APIs make it easy for applications to manage data and metadata on aglobal basis without intense recoding of applications. Simple!

Using these industry standard APIs makes application migration and integration seamless. Thetremendous simplicity of HTTP-based ReSTful APIs makes them far more scalable, too, whichis why object storage is becoming so popular as more and more organizations grow topetabyte-scale data storage.

Simply, Reliably Accessible

In part because of its simplicity, object storage with ReSTful APIs is accessible from suchindustry-standard platforms as the appropriately named Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3),the Storage Networking Industry Association’s Cloud Data Management Interface, GoogleCloud Platform, OpenStack Swift, and other native protocols. ReST is simply not playing hard toget.

One advantage of using software-defined platforms such as Ceph or OpenStack Swift is thatthey enable users to build solutions on commodity server hardware and disk drives and replicateobjects to reduce latency and errors that can be introduced by long-haul transfers of data.

All of the platforms that support object storage, including Amazon S3, provide ReST APIs thatmake it easy for programmers to work with objects and containers.

Simply put, ReST basically amounts to using simple, familiar Web protocols to facilitate movingdata into and out of applications. To learn more about ReST and how it is facilitated by productssuch as Ceph Storage, visit Red Hat at www.redhat.com/en/technologies/storage/ceph .

2016-05-02 12:06 Steve Bohac www.informationweek.com

38 CIOs: Match security plans to your company's 'risk appetite'

This report from the CIO Executive Council(CEC), based on a webcast featuring ScottAngelo, CIO at K&L Gates, and Mike Plantinga,CIO at CIBC Mellon, explores CIO-levelstrategies for dealing with cybersecurity threats –before and after a data breach.

One step the report recommends is developing a“risk appetite statement” that identifies how muchthe organization is willing to spend on certainsecurity threats.

The report also encourages CIOs to develop aplan for how to communicate with various stakeholders, such as the board of directors andoutsiders, in case of a data breach.

To learn more, register to download the free report, which includes a link to the full CECwebcast.

To continue reading this article register now

Learn More Existing Users Sign In

2016-05-02 11:45 CIO.com www.computerworld.com

39 Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare goes full sci-fi with space-based

gunfightsWith more leaks than the Titanic, we pretty muchknew what to expect out of today’s Call of Dutyreveal. But now it’s here, in 1080p, with a trailerfull of space-dudes shooting each other and oneill-considered cover of “Space Oddity.”

That’s right. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare ’s hookfor 2016 is that you strap on your Buzz Lightyearboots and blast off into space, making itobjectively one notch better than Star WarsBattlefront. Check out the trailer below:

It definitely looks like Call of Duty. Or at least thelast four near-future Call of Duty s.

More interesting: Certain preorder tiers come with a remaster of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare— which, despite being released in 2007, is still the best non-World War II game in the series.But the bad news is that as far as I can tell the remaster is console-only. One could say “Well, thePC version already was the remastered version” but even if that were true I would’ve been happyto see the multiplayer servers fill out again.

We’ll keep you updated if we hear the Modern Warfare remaster is coming to PC also.

Anyway, the game releases November 4. “Another year, another Call of Duty ,” and all that.Expect to hear more about the game in June courtesy of E3, and stay tuned later this week (May6) to see whatever the hell Battlefield counters this with.

This story, "Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare goes full sci-fi with space-based gunfights" wasoriginally published by

PCWorld .

2016-05-02 11:14 Hayden Dingman www.itnews.com

40 Elon Musk: Tesla Model 3 Will Offer Ludicrous Mode

Fans of electric car manufacturer Tesla will bepleased to know its upcoming entry-level vehicle,the Model 3, will come with the optional Ludicrousmode, an upgrade that allows for super-fastacceleration.

The decision was confirmed by none other thancompany CEO Elon Musk, who responded to aTwitter inquiry asking if the Model 3 would offerLudicrous mode. Musk tweeted back with adeadpan "of course. "

The acceleration option is already available forthe Model X and Model. Tesla claims Ludicrous

mode for the Model S decreases 0-60 mph time by 10%, to 2.8 seconds, and says the time to155 mph is now 20% less than a standard Model S performance.

At the Model 3's public unveiling earlier this year, Musk said the standard Model 3, which willretail for $35,000 before incentives, will boast the ability to accelerate from 0-60 miles per hourin under 6 seconds.

With a five-star safety rating, Tesla boasts the Model 3 will also be the safest car in its class. Itwill feature supercharging for long distance travel. It can seat up to five adults, and also boastsAutopilot safety features.

The major styling cue of the Model 3 is the lack of a front grille. The car doesn't need onebecause there are no ventilation requirements as with a combustion engine, but it will be seenwhether customers (and critics) embrace a large blank space on the front of a vehicle.

All predictions of sales success for the Model 3 have been blown out of the water, since Teslareceived more than a quarter million pre-orders in days.

[Read Google Hires Ex-Motorola Chief to Head New Hardware Division .]

The car isn't even expected to be available until the end of 2017 -- a target date that watchers ofthe delay-plagued car manufacturer are probably taking with a grain of salt.

"Definitely going to need to rethink production planning…" Musk tweeted on April 1.

In separate tweets over the weekend, Musk also revealed the Model 3 will be a rear-wheel drive(RWD) vehicle with an option for a dual-motor all-wheel drive (AWD) edition. He released adesign sketch of the Model 3, and promised tokens of appreciation to those who lined up to putdown their deposits in the mail.

RBC analyst Joseph Spak also voiced concerns over Tesla's ability to meet demand, but saidthe initial orders could help the company create a positive cash flow.

"Demand was never really our concern. It is more about execution and getting production up tomeet demand," he told CNBC.

By the time the Model 3 does hit the road there will be more competitors on the market,including General Motors' Chevrolet Bolt EV , which is expected to launch next year, carrying aprice tag similar to the Model 3.

Spak also warned Tesla fans may not get their hands on a Model 3 before 2019.

2016-05-02 10:38 Nathan Eddy www.informationweek.com

41 YouTube Testing A New Material UI Design On The Web

Almost every Google app on Android devicesnow has a material design interface plus some ofGoogle’s web pages as well, Google’s globalvideo-sharing website, YouTube which isn’t partof the collection of sites that have material designelements implemented, could be changing soon,as they appear to be testing a new materialdesign interface. According to Venture Beat , “it’ssurprising because Google introduced Materialdesign almost two years ago and is only now getting around to deploying the code in the wild.”

Although the material design interface is still in testing, it is apparently being tested on a smallgroup of users while the developers look for bugs. However, Google plans to roll it out to thepublic.

Android Police reports that, the new look won’t necessarily be immediately visible if you headon over to youtube.com. You’ll have to do a little bit of tinkering while you’re signed out of the sitein Chrome (and located in the U. S.).

Here are some of the screen shots to the up-coming Youtube – Image Credits: Android Police

1. The Channel Page

Old:

New:

2. Video Player Page

Old:

New:

Want to try it out for yourself? Here are some instructions if you’re using Chrome:

You can also reuse your VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE cookie.

2016-05-02 09:46 Nathan Ernest pctechmag.com

42 8 Things Partners Need To Know About Dell's New IoT Effort

Dell’s recently signed Internet of Things agreement with several independentsoftware vendors that will soon form the basis of an IoT-focused overlay to itsPartnerDirect channel partner program, the vendor says.

The agreement includes several tiers of ISVs, about 30 so far, which includeGE, SAP, Software AG, Microsoft, OSIsoft, Azeti, Blue Pillar, Datawatch,

Eigen Innovations, Flowthings, Flutura, GE, Kepware, Lynx Software, OSIsoft, Relayr, andThingWorx.

The aim of the program is to create and present a unified IoT strategy to a fragmented market inorder to help customers identify the technologies that will best serve their needs. Dell partnerstell IT Best of Breed that the company's effort will help partners get into a space they know they'llhave to play in.

Jason Shepherd, Dell’s director of IoT strategy and partnerships, said the ability to scale is

important to partner success in the IoT market, even though many partners begin with a regionalfocus. "We realize that channels in the IoT market are sometimes even more regionally focusedthan traditional IT, but scale is important," Shepherd said, especially as partners advancethrough the tiers of Dell's program.

And Dell IoT execs say the market is becoming fertile ground for channel partners that approachthe opportunity the right way. The following outline eight important aspects of the effort, as wellas a few things Dell says it needs from its partners in order to make the most of the opportunity.

8. It’s Built Around Dell Edge Gateway

The Dell Edge IoT gateway allows users to collect, analyze and make decisions about IoT dataat the edge of the network. It also supports Windows 10, and is Microsoft Azure-certified for IoT.Dell says Gateway offers seamless, secure interaction with the Azure IoT suite, which allowspartners and customers to get IoT-related projects running quickly.

7. Use Case Blueprints

Dell and the ISVs are creating use case blueprints to help customers speed up IoT projects andmake sense of the ISV landscape. Dell, Kepware and Software AG are collaborating to developIoT-enabled predictive maintenance models to address operational challenges such asunplanned downtime, equipment effectiveness, maintenance cost and return on assets, openingopportunities for partners to move beyond just IT and help customers with their businessproblems.

6. Domain Expertise

Dell’s IoT efforts are focused on commercial and industrial use cases, including buildingautomation, remote asset management, energy management, fleet management and logistics.Shepherd said the company's channel partners should build their expertise in these areas, too.

5. Utilities For Utilities

With Microsoft and Blue Pillar, Dell is developing automated demand response solutions, whichhelp utilities maintain grid reliability and allow ratepayers to realize value through the dispatch ofon-site power generation or reduction in energy consumption. The idea is that customers will cutcosts through demand-response technology and reduce operational risks through proactivenotification from a utility of potential power disruptions.

Partners that work with utility companies could see significant upside with the program as moreof those customers turn to IoT to improve operations.

4. Environmental Studies

Shepherd said partners that will succeed with IoT will be those that become familiar with thedemands of installing equipment in industrial environments, not just in data centers. Thatincludes networking experience, especially with industrial standards such as BACnet, Modbusand OPC, and experience with SCADA systems, Shepherd said.

3. On The Edge

Dell and SAP are collaborating to bring business to the network's edge with models designed tohelp meet operational challenges such as business continuity and overall equipmenteffectiveness, and, by extension, control maintenance costs and improve return on assets.

2. Tight Relationships

Existing relationships with other IoT solution providers are key to partners’ success, Shepherdsaid; for example, a systems integrator that has relationships with telcos or ISVs, or an OEM thatalready has a network of system integrators for deployment. "We'll help our partners build theserelationships with each other through the partner program, too," Shepherd said.

1. Handling Heat In Industrial Environments

Dell is also touting the resilience of its Edge Gateway 5100 model in t¬he wide temperatureranges found in the industrial environments where they're often deployed. It has also launchedfive new accessories for the Edge Gateways that are available to partners looking to helpcustomers with their IoT plans. Those products include input/output and power expansionmodules, ZigBee module, CAN bus card, and IP65-rated rugged enclosure. Dell has alsointroduced new cloud-based manageability software, the Edge Device Manager (EDM), whichprovides centralized reporting and control of edge gateways from a single cloud-based console.

2016-05-02 09:40 Senior Content www.crn.com

43 attends Silicon Valley Virtual Reality 2016

I spent a few days last week at the Silicon ValleyVirtual Reality Expo in San Jose. SVVR is a fairlysmall convention that showcases the latestdevelopments in VR. The Turris VR chair that wecovered last week was at the convention, butsince it got its own article already, I won't talkabout it here other than to say that it wassubjected to nearly non-stop use for three daysand got plenty of positive feedback. Turris aside,here's what I did and saw at the event.

Luckey and I were some of just a few attendeeswith the gumption to wear cargo shorts to the show.

Palmer Luckey from Oculus presented the event's keynote. Unsurprisingly, he's bullish on thefuture of VR. My plan to use Cortana to dictate notes failed epically (and humorously), though,which means I've got nothing to share that I'm confident he actually said. You'll have to settle for arecap of the other experiences I had at the show instead.

At SVVR, dressing like this makes you a stud.

Infinadeck

The first VR device I saw at the show was the somewhat imposing-looking Infinadeck. TheInfinadeck is a true VR treadmill that allows for freedom of movement in any direction, thanks toa treadmill deck comprising individual sections of belt that can move in a perpendicular directionto the main belt. After signing a personal safety wavier, I hopped on and buckled in. There wasno VR aspect to this demo, and I quickly found out why. It was plenty tricky enough to staybalanced with the floor effectively moving underneath me as it was. The deck moves when yourwaist pulls on the belt you're strapped into. The direction of the deck's motion (which can be anyangle) is dictated by the armature above your head.

Surprisingly the only motion sickness I felt all week had nothing to do with VR.

The deck itself delivers its promised functionality, but the whole system was fairly loose andsensitive to unintentional motions. The sensitivity left me in a constant state of unbalance, whichexplains the safety wavier and the lack of a Rift or Vive to goggle in with. You need all of yourreal world faculties just to stay upright on the Infinadeck. I suspect that with some adjustment andpractice, this system would be something you could get better at operating, though. TheInfinadeck appears to be for professional use only—I don't even want to know what one wouldcost.

Interactive Lab

Mobile VR was a huge deal at SVVR. There were probably 10 Gear VRs or similar devices forevery wired Vive or Rift (and about a 5:1 ratio of Vives to Rifts, by the way). The second demo I

tried was from the folks at Interactive Lab. It used a Galaxy Gear with a Galaxy S7 clipped into it.The demo was a room-scale setup that used reflective balls on the headset and a gun controller.Those reflective balls were tracked by emitters and cameras. In the demo itself, your character isplaced in a space station that is being invaded by robots. I could move around and duck undercover to avoid being shot, but there didn't seem to be any penalty for getting hit.

Space VR dude blasts robots in a wireless room-scale VR space station. Only in Silicon Valley.

The graphics quality of the demo was fairly impressive for a mobile solution—with a smoothframe rate, to boot. It was also extremely nice to try room-scale VR without being tethered at all. Ididn't get any hint of motion sickness, either. As PC enthusiasts, it's easy for us to focus on thethe high-end stuff, but this demo proved to me how compelling mobile VR at room-scale can be,as well.

Camera used flash. It's super reflective!

Stompz

The next demo I tried was Talaris Technologies' Stompz. Stompz are small devices that cliponto your shoes and translate the motion of walking in place into movement in a VR experience.Stompz don't use positional tracking, though. Instead, the associated software translatesaccelerometer signals from the devices into either a key press for walking forward (like W in ourtime-honored WASD) or a modifier and a key press to run (like Shift + W). The thresholds totrigger each control are adjustable to accommodate however much real world effort you want toexert. Talaris used a CV1 Rift for its demo, and movement direction was controlled by thedirection the headset was facing.

3D printed prototypes and VR tech demos go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Not to pick favorites here or anything, but I have to compare the experience of using Stompz andusing the Turris. Mine is an extremely niche case, but coming from the Turris, I immediately feltuneasy about my walking direction being solely dictated by where I was looking—especiallybecause I was walking in place instead of sitting. I do think that simply walking in place isprobably a better solution to VR movement than some of the stationary treadmill options that areout there, though, because Stompz-like devices should require less effort and space to set up. IfStompz or something similar was upgraded to work with the Vive's lighthouse trackers, it couldbecome something pretty special, though (come on room-scale goalie simulator!).

Tactical Haptics

The only demo I had read about before getting to SVVR was Tactical Haptics '. The TacticalHaptics device is an add-on that clips onto an HTC Vive controller to take advantage of theabsolute positioning data the controller provides. The add-on has a trigger you activate with yourindex finger, but the special sauce is actually built into the grip that the rest of your hand wrapsaround while holding it. The front and the back of the grip are rubber pads that can actually slideup and down the handle. When you're holding the Tactical Haptics device, this motion istranslated into surprisingly convincing interactions with objects in VR.

Wil Wheaton tries out the Tactical Haptics demo (not really).

In my favorite part of the demo, three virtual bungee cords hang in the space in front of you. Eachone is a different thickness, and each responded differently when I reached out and stretchedthem. The sliding of the grips comes across to your hand as almost a torque-type sensation asyou stretch and twist the bungies. There's obviously some pretty fancy software magic going onto make the interaction of the VR simulation, controller feedback, and real-world movement allsync up so well. It reminded me of a VR version of the Novint Falcon's abilities, but that's soobscure I doubt it will help many people understand. All told, Tactical Haptics' device issomething I would definitely want to include in my VR experience if I could, but as of right nowthere is no release date or price for the product.

Life of Lon

One other demo I tried was for the VR game Life of Lon by Block Interval. When I tried it, I didn'trealize I was playing a demo for an actual game instead of a tech demo that was showing offsome particular VR innovation. I have to say that the demo probably lasted about five timeslonger than it needed to, thanks to an extended and non-interactive opening sequence. Maybe itwas made with VR rookies in mind. After the demo finally gives you control, you meet a cutealien sea-otter type character and (hopefully) your curiosity compels you to follow him. Thegameplay consists of pressing the A button on an Xbox controller and then tilting your head leftand right. It's pretty intuitive and, with the right game design choices behind it, could be a viablecontrol mechanism (but perhaps a bit of a limiting one, as well).

Yep.

Closing thoughts

There are an insane number of people and groups all trying to work out this whole VR thing. Iseems like everyone has something interesting to contribute, but no one could possibly saywhich ones are going to stick at this point. There were a ton of presenters at SVVR, and I onlyhad time to check out a small number of them. I'm told that the Project Alice demo from Noitomand partners Lenovo and Nvidia was particularly impressive at combining different elements ofVR, but I wasn't able to try it.

I've got to get me one of these!

There were also dozens of different solutions for capturing 360 video for use in VR as well. Itwas clear that VR is not just the realm of real-time rendered images. I really need to get workingon something like the 360-degree video drone above for the BBQ —the show gave me lots ofnew ideas for bringing that event to the world.

I'll wrap up my thoughts about SVVR with this. If you think hats in TF2 , decorations in The Sims ,horse armor, Counter-Strike skins, and cosmetic DLC in general are ridiculous already, just waituntil social VR takes off and all those digital goods become virtual goods. It's only going to getweirder from here, folks.

2016-05-02 08:54 by Colton techreport.com

44 FBI Hacking Authority Expanded By Supreme Court

On Thursday, the US Supreme Court presentedCongress with changes in the Rules of CriminalProcedure that will allow judges to issue warrantsdirected at electronic devices outside theirjurisdiction. These changes vastly expand thegovernment's surveillance and hacking power.

Magistrate judges are mostly limited toauthorizing search and seizures in theirjurisdiction. The changes to Rule 41 , requestedby the Department of Justice and endorsed bythe Supreme Court justices, give judges theability "to issue a warrant to use remote access

to search electronic storage media and to seize or copy electronically stored information locatedwithin or outside that district" if the information sought has been "concealed throughtechnological means" or the device has been damaged without authorization and is held in fiveor more districts.

Compromised computers are considered "damaged" for the purpose of these rules. Thisdefinition allows investigators to infiltrate botnets anywhere in the world using a warrant. But the

Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) contends the rule is overly broad because about30% of the world's computers could be considered "damaged" -- infected with malware -- andthus could be subject to Rule 41 searches.

Among other objections to the changed rules, the CDT has argued that authorizing a searchwarrant for an unknown location violates the Fourth Amendment requirement that warrantsshould "[describe] the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. "

David Bitkower, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, has defended the constitutionalityof the rule change and the utility of adopting the change as a way to deal with anonymizationtechnology. In a Dec. 22, 2014 letter to Judge Reena Raggi, chair of the Advisory Committee onCriminal Rules, he wrote the issue is "whether [search warrants using certain remote searchtechniques] should as a practical matter be precluded in cases involving anonymizingtechnology due to lack of a clearly authorized venue to consider warrant applications. "

The government use of Network Investigative Techniques, or hacking, as seen in the FBI'srecent effort to break into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters, has attractedthe attention of lawmakers.

In June last year, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), wrote a letter toFBI Director James Comey inquiring about government-authorized hacking. "Obviously, the useof such capabilities by the government can raise serious privacy concerns," he wrote, asking fordetails about FBI policies and procedures when the agency employs spyware. Among thequestions he asked was which companies the FBI has impersonated when trying to installspyware through phishing and whether the agency has informed those companies.

[Read Email Privacy Act Wins Sweeping Approval in House .]

US Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) issued a statement on Thursday asking members of Congress toreject the government's expanded hacking and surveillance powers. Such significant rulechanges should be addressed by Congress, he said.

"Under the proposed rules, the government would now be able to obtain a single warrant toaccess and search thousands or millions of computers at once; and the vast majority of theaffected computers would belong to the victims, not the perpetrators, of a cybercrime," saidWyden. "These are complex issues involving privacy, digital security and our Fourth Amendmentrights, which require thoughtful debate and public vetting. "

The rule change will take effect on Dec. 1, 2016 unless Congress takes action to alter the rules.Wyden said he plans to introduce legislation to reverse the rule amendments soon.

2016-05-02 08:06 Thomas Claburn www.informationweek.com

45 Carved Wood Power Bank review: A charming, stylish and

hand-finished wooden power bank that does a veryimportant job

By

Marie Brewis | 02 May 16

See full specs

$59.99 + $3.99 shipping to the UK

A charming, stylish and hand-finished wooden power bank , the Carved Wood Power Bank isable to keep your phone and/or tablet topped upfor extended periods away from home. Wereview the Carved Wood Power Bank 12000mAh. Also see: Best power banks 2016.

Carved is perhaps better known for its gorgeous range of real-wood phone cases for popularphones such as the iPhone 6s and Samsung Galaxy S7 , but it also lists phone accessories,including hand-finished docks and power banks. The Wood Power Bank is available direct fromCarved.com in 8000- and 12000mAh capacities; we reviewed the 12000mAh model.

Carved is a US company based in Indiana, but ships to the UK for $3.99. In total you’ll pay$63.98 for the 12000mAh Wood Power Bank , which converts to around £43.98 at the time ofwriting. (The 8000mAh model works out at $43.98 or £30.23 with shipping.) That is verging onexpensive for a 12,000mAh power bank, but its quirky wooden design makes it worth the extracost. Also see: Best MiFi 2016.

(The Wood Power Bank is currently out of stock at Carved.com but should be back in stockshortly.)

Carved doesn’t specify the type of wood that is used to encase the power bank, but it looks verymuch like Sapele, which is a bit like Mahogany with its reddish-brown timber. However, sincethe power bank is made from real wood, which is a natural, organic material, no two powerbanks Carved ships will ever be identical.

The wooden finish is beautiful, and tiny imperfections such as the unfinished edge around thefour-LED panel add to its charm. The top and sides have been carved out of a single block ofwood, with a bottom panel (necessary to get the electronics inside) lying completely flush withthe rest of the case and held firmly in place. Small details, such as the wooden button that ispressed to begin charging (there’s no auto-on) or show how much power remains, and theexpertly finished cutouts for USB connectors, all add to the appeal. Also see: How to chargeyour phone's battery faster.

A down side of using wood - and especially thin wood such as this - is that it begins to twistwhen it gets hot. Already the Carved Wood Power Bank rocks ever so slightly when placed on aflat table, and we wouldn’t want to risk making it worse by leaving it in direct sunlight. (Thenagain, we probably wouldn’t want to leave any power bank in direct sunlight on a particularly hotday.)

We might have complained that the 5W (5V/1A) Micro-USB input is slow for a high-capacitypower bank such as this, especially given that the Wood Power Bank does not supportpassthrough charging (the ability to charge both it and a connected device from a single mainspower outlet), but actually we think reducing the amount of heat generated by charging the powerbank slower is probably a good thing. You can expect the 12000mAh model to recharge inbetween 12- and 14 hours, and the lower capacity 8000mAh bank to recharge in eight- to 10hours. Also see : How to improve smartphone battery life.

And anyway, it might be fairly slow to refuel, but the Carved Wood Power Bank offers fastcharging for your phone. One of the two USB outputs, denoted with a lightning flash etched intothe rear, is rated at 10W (5V/2A); this is hardly Quick Charge 3.0 , but it will charge your devicefaster than many chargers shipped with phones these days. The second USB output is a slower5W (5V/1A) output.

Rated at 12,000mAh, you can reasonably expect between 65- and 70 percent to be available toyour power-hungry gadgets, which is the industry standard for power banks (some energy is lostthrough voltage conversion and heat generated). That’s around 8,000mAh, which would fill aSamsung Galaxy S7 three times, or an iPhone 6s four and a half times; to work out how manytimes it would charge your own phone simply divide 8000 by its battery capacity.

The Carved Wood Power Bank is supplied with a burlap bag that doesn’t just protect it in transitbut adds even more style.

Read next: Best desktop chargers 2016 .

Follow Marie Brewis on Twitter.

It’s relatively expensive, slow to refill its own battery and comes without any advanced features,but we wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this charming hand-finished wooden power bank onstyle grounds alone. Just be careful not to let the Carved Wood Power Bank get too hot.

Best Samsung Galaxy S7 deals: Where to buy Galaxy S7 & Galaxy S7 Edge

1995-2015: How technology has changed the world in 20 years

How Toca Boca designed the characters, UX and gameplay for Toca Dance

Why programmers think Mac OS X is the best operating system to use for coding

2016-05-02 08:00 Marie Brewis www.pcadvisor.co.uk

46 Cheaper than the Galaxy S7 but just as good-looking -

Galaxy A5 2016 in picturesThe Samsung Galaxy A5 2016 costs £319 fromMobile Fun and should be in stock within the nextfew weeks. For more information on the GalaxyA5 see our Samsung Galaxy 6 (2016) review or Galaxy A5 UK release date, price, specificationsand new features.

The Samsung Galaxy A5 2016 costs £319 fromMobile Fun and should be in stock within the nextfew weeks. For more information on the GalaxyA5 see our Samsung Galaxy 6 (2016) review or

Galaxy A5 UK release date, price, specifications and new features.

2016-05-02 07:30 Marie Brewis www.pcadvisor.co.uk

47 EVGA GeForce GT 710 review: A £29 graphics upgrade

which will fit pretty much any PCBy

Paul Monckton

| 02 May 16

See full specs

£29.65 inc VAT

Available for around £30, graphics cards basedon Nvidia’s GT 710 GPU are some of the leastexpensive graphics cards around, but should youconsider buying one? Here's our EVGA GeForce GT 710 review.

Advances in integrated graphics performance have all but destroyed the market for such low-end graphics cards in new PCs. Modern CPUs from Intel, and even more so those from AMD,come with built in graphics capabilities which are more than adequate for most non-gamingpurposes.

The GeForce GT 710 specification is most certainly that of an entry-level product. With 192CUDA cores and just 1GB of DDR3 memory, connected via a 64-bit bus, it’s clear that this cardisn’t designed for high performance. It may be considerably faster than many of Intel’s existingintegrated graphics solutions, it’s still best purchased for its features rather than its speed.

You can buy the EVGA GeForce GT 710 from Scan .co.uk for £29.65.

The EVGA GT 710 gives you one each of VGA, HDMI and DVI-D outputs and, if you have theright peripherals, you’ll be able to display 3D content on supported TVs and displays with billionsof colours and support for 7.1 surround sound. The card can output on all three portssimultaneously for multi-monitor setups, although sadly there’s no DisplayPort available.Resolutions at 60Hz max out at 2560x1600 for digital outputs and 2048x1536 via the VGAadapter, but you can setup up to 3840x2160 or even 4096x2160 over HDMI if you drop therefresh rate to 30Hz and 24Hz respectively. (You won't want to do that - it's possible but notrecommended.)

Thanks to its passively cooled, fanless design, the runs completely silently and the absence ofmoving parts will increase long-term reliability over and above fan-based coolers which will canfill with dust and seize up over time.

One of the key advantages of this particular card, other than the price, is ability to fit in just aboutany PC.

Measuring only 68.8 by 114.3mm, the EVGA GeForce GT 710 is relatively tiny, and comes withfull height and half height brackets in the box, making it suitable for the vast majority of PC formfactors, although the thickness of the passive heat sink means it’ll take up two PCI Express slots.Thankfully, EVGA makes six slightly different versions of this card, so if you need a single slotsolution, you can opt for one with a fan-based cooler instead. You can also opt for a 2GB versionof a fixed full-height board.

The card has very low power requirements too. You can get away with a 300W power supplyand no special PSU connectors are required to connect the card.

Nvidia claims the GeForce GT710 has “up to 10x better performance than integrated graphics”,but don’t buy it for that reason as it’s really not a sensible performance upgrade for gaming.When it comes to frame per second, you’d most likely find you’ve transformed your PC from“Don’t even think about it” to “Nope, still really not fast enough”.

Let’s keep things in perspective here. The GT 710 costs less to buy than a single top-tier game,so if you can afford to buy games, you really should be able to budget for a faster card than this.

However, if you’re really determined, and your expectations are low, you can get some lessdemanding titles to run faster than a slide show. Crank the quality settings all the way down aslow as possible, stick to 720p resolution and some titles do become playable - even recentreleases.

DiRT Rally, for example, averaged 76.5fps at 720p in Ultra Low settings in our tests. You cancertainly play the game with perfectly smooth graphics using the GeForce GT 710, but it’s farfrom pretty and you're unlikely to be happy with the low-quality version of the game these settingsdeliver.

Bumping up the quality just a single notch from Ultra Low to Low roughly halves the performanceand isn’t really worth it. Running at 1080p with Ultra Low settings is another option, with averageframe rates of 44.9fps, but with a minimum frame rate of 32.9 fps, it’s much less smooth than at720p where it rarely dips below 60fps.

With other games you may not be so lucky. It’s often the case that the quality setting simply won’tgo low enough to allow playable graphics. On the other hand, some games let you run in reallylow resolutions like 800x600, in which case you may be in with a chance. It would be unfair andessentially pointless to run our usual suite of gaming tests on this card, so we’ve decided not to.

With gaming effectively ruled out, there are still valid reasons to buy a card at this level ofperformance, and the EVGA GT 710 is a rather good option under those circumstances.

If you’re building or repurposing a PC as a home media center, adding a GT 710 will ensurecompatibility with the latest displays and, because it’s passively cooled, there’s no fan to

generate any noise while you’re watching video or listening to music. This makes it an ideal cardto use in a home theatre PC or home server. It will also give you accelerated video playback andcan handle 3D Blu-ray content.

With its three decent video outputs, plus all the other good stuff Nvidia gives you in terms ofsoftware and driver support, including the GeForce Experience software, the EVGA GeForceGT 710 is an inexpensive and widely compatible way to add an additional monitors to a PCwhich doesn’t currently have enough video outputs. This will often be the case if you have asystem using one of Intel’s high-end CPUs which doesn’t come with integrated graphics at all,such as the Core i7-5960X we use in our test system, or many of the Xeon range.

Even a budget card like the GT 710 will also give you some GPU acceleration in applicationssuch as Adobe Photoshop which support Nvidia's CUDA technology.

Because the price is so low, this also a the ideal type of graphics card to keep around if youoften find yourself fixing PCs or diagnosing hardware problems. It costs far less than a gamingcard and yet it will work with all the latest operating systems and very low-spec PC hardware, soyou can install it easily to test motherboards or PCs where the graphics have inexplicablystopped working.

The EVGA GT 710 is an inexpensive way to add up to three display outputs to your PC, alongwith Nvidia’s driver support and enhanced features. It’s completely silent and compatible withalmost all PC hardware, but just don’t buy it for gaming purposes.

Best Samsung Galaxy S7 deals: Where to buy Galaxy S7 & Galaxy S7 Edge

1995-2015: How technology has changed the world in 20 years

How Toca Boca designed the characters, UX and gameplay for Toca Dance

Why programmers think Mac OS X is the best operating system to use for coding

2016-05-02 07:16 Paul Monckton www.pcadvisor.co.uk

48 Inside Intel's Museum: 10 Must-See Exhibits

Housed in the first floor lobby of its corporateheadquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., the IntelMuseum is more than just a gallery celebratingone company's history. It is also a place wherethe evolution of an entire disruptive industry ischronicled.

Nearly every device today containsmicroprocessors and other semiconductor chips.Intel was one of the pioneers of this technology inthe 1960s. And that technology became the

underlying building block of every subsequent computer, mobile phone, tablet, and consolegame. The chips are also now in many more varied devices today, including refrigerators, cars,HVAC systems, and electricity meters, to name a few.

It all started in Silicon Valley with chip makers such as Intel.

From Intel's beginnings as a startup in the 1960s with just about 100 employees in MountainView, Calif., to its position today as a multibillion dollar company pushing the technologyenvelope in multiple disciplines from chip design to big data , this company's history parallelsthe development of the personal computer industry.

[See Intel Developer Forum: Spiders, Flying Sharks, and Drones .]

At the Intel Museum visitors will see some of the first wearables created, some early versions of

Intel's memory chips and processors, and learn about why Intel transitioned from manufacturingmemory chips to processor chips instead. Museum-goers will also find out how Intel makeschips, what materials are used, and what the manufacturing process is like. They'll also learnabout some of the early products that incorporated Intel chips, from calculators to hobbyistpersonal computers.

The museum itself was founded by longtime Intel employee Jean Jones, who started working forthe company in 1968, retired in 1996, and passed away last year on March 18, 2015 .

Until you can make it to the museum during your next trip to Silicon Valley, here's a look at someof the rich history and technology that this museum offers. Take the tour and let us know what youthink. Are there other tech museums we should know about? Tell us in the comments.

2016-05-02 07:06 Jessica Davis www.informationweek.com

49 GoPro Karma drone release date, specifications, price

rumours: New drone coming before Summer 2016If you believe the analysts, GoPro is in trouble. It’squickly losing out to cut-price knock-offs in theaction camera market and appears to be pinningits hopes on its forthcoming drone – the GoProKarma - to help turn things around. You can alsoread the best drones coming in 2016

There’s no official date yet, but it is widelyexpected to launch by the end of the secondquarter this year. That would mean it will appearon shelves before the end of June 2016.

Few details are yet known about the drone, as GoPro is keeping it all firmly under wraps, apartfrom the teaser video it has released. Price is one of the big unknowns, but the rumour is that thedrone won’t come with a camera – you’ll simply clip on your existing Hero 3 or 4.

This should bring the price down, but in order to compete, GoPro will have to price the Karmacompetitively. The company is late to the party, and chief rival DJI already has a low-cost drone– the Phantom 3 Standard – which has a stabilised camera which you can buy for just £435 onAmazon.

GoPro tried to put together a deal with DJI to get its cameras on DJI’s drones, but apparentlywanted too big a cut of the profits and negotiations went sour. Also, putting a GoPro on a droneis far from a novelty: many existing drones already have GoPro mounts, and the 3DR Solo wasspecifically designed to work with the Hero 3 and 4.

Given that we have only the teaser videos to go by, no-one outside of GoPro can be sure of thespecifications.

It’s very likely that the Karma will be a similar size to a DJI Phantom, and will probably have asimilar flight time of 20-25 minutes.

The skier in the video below throws the drone into the air on the move and it orbits and followshim, so while ‘follow me’ drones aren’t new, not many can be launched on the move.

One of the videos tops out at 1080p, and the other at 4K, but video features will be limited onlyby the GoPro camera you attach, so it’s no surprise to see plenty of slo-mo footage in the teaser– this is likely upscaled from 1080p to 4K as no current GoPro can shoot 4K at more than 30frames per second. Even DJI’s Phantom 4 can only shoot slo-mo in 1080p.

As more information comes to light, we’ll update this article.

(Drone icon used in main image created by Patrick McDonnell and used under CreativeCommons licence.)

2016-05-02 07:00 Jim Martin www.pcadvisor.co.uk

50 Mafia 3 release date UK, price, features and trailer: Coming

to PS4, Xbox One and PC this OctoberMafia 3 is coming this year and has the potentialto be one of the best games of 2016. Here's whatyou need to know about Mafia 3 release date UK,price, platforms, gameplay features and watchthe official trailer (above).

See also: Most anticipated games of 2016.

The official Mafia 3 release date is 7 October2016 .

As usual, you can pre-order Mafia 3 from a rangeof retailers and the game will be launched on PS4 , Xbox One and PC this October. Mafia 3pricing starts at £34.99 for the PC download and jumps to £43.99 for consoles. There's also aPC Deluxe edition which also includes season pass for £52.99.

Read: What to expect at E3 2016 .

There's some bonus content on offer if you pre-order Mafia 3 which comes in the form of ' FamilyKick-Back'. Available via GAME and Steam, it includes exclusive vehicles and weapons.

• Pre-order Mafia 3 at Amazon

• Pre-order Mafia 3 at GAME

• Pre-order Mafia 3 at Steam

Set in 1968 in New Orleans, you'll take on the role of Lincoln Clay, a Vietnam veteran whosefamily have always been involved with organised crime. Lincoln wages war on the Italian mob inNew Bordeaux.

"Family isn't who you're born with, it's who you die for. Now back home, in a reimagined NewOrleans, Lincoln is set on rebuilding his life, but old ties keep him from leaving the city. It will takemore than a few friends to make it in this new world," says the description.

"Intense gun fights, visceral hand-to-hand combat, white knuckle driving and street smarts will allbe needed. But with the right crew, tough decisions and some dirty hands, it’s possible to makeit to the top of the city's underworld. It’s time to create a new family. "

You'll have to chip away at the influence of your rivals so you can, eventually, go after the topdogs. When you're not having a good old fashioned shootout, Mafia 3 includes missions such aswiretapping targeted areas (which will allow you to see enemies through walls).

You can also upgrade your car and do sneaky things like get your rivals phone lines cut off sothey can't call for reinforcements. The open world promises to be a key feature and the bigimprovement compared to Mafia 2.

Gameplay info via IGN

2016-05-02 07:00 Chris Martin www.pcadvisor.co.uk

51

51 10 tips to help CIOs reduce stressThe role of CIO can be a stressful one, and livingunder stress is something everyone should avoid.That's because overexposure to cortisol andother hormones that are released in times ofstress can lead to health problems includinganxiety, depression, sleep problems and heartdisease.

The good news is that there are plenty of thingsyou can do to help remove the stress associatedwith a C-level position. Here are some tips fromfellow executives.

A key to a good night's sleep is knowing exactly what you're responsible for -- how many datacenters you have, where they are, where your critical applications are located and so on -- saysJeff Schilling, CSO of cybersecurity company Armor. "I am always surprised when I meet a CIOor senior IT leader in an organization and they can't describe their IT architecture," he says. "Ilose sleep at night if I don’t know how my network is put together and what I need to do to protectit. "

He suggests that to be in a position to do this you may need to make an investment in tools thathelp discover and track infrastructure in a change mManagement database if you don't havethem already.

The last thing you want on your network is activity that you're either not aware of or uncertain asto its cause. But thanks to next-generation firewalls it's now possible to get a complete handle onwhat applications are in use on your network, and who is using them. What's more, you cancontrol who can use what, and block everything else, says Rick Howard, CSO of enterprisesecurity company Palo Alto Networks.

"If a CIO already knows the authorized applications and the users that run them, then anymalicious behavior that pops up, like Command & Control activity and unauthorized dataexfiltration, is by default an unknown application that can be blocked automatically," he says."Impact: CIO stress reduction. "

It's exposure to risk that's a significant cause of CIO headaches, but IT security is all about riskmanagement. By judiciously applying appropriate policies to regulate what systems and datadifferent users can access -- both internally and externally -- you can reduce these headaches,says Andrew Wertkin, CTO at software defined networking software company BlueCatNetworks.

"Put controls in place to limit access to services or systems that aren’t necessary to support thebusiness and your risk exposure goes down dramatically," he says.

One of the best ways to reduce job stress is to connect with other CIOs to share your challenges,exchange advice and see what other people are stressed about and how they deal with it,according to Kendra Von Esh, a former CIO at Veolia who is now executive strategic advisor atCoupa , a cloud-based spend management software company.

"You may gain new perspectives, and you may find that your situation is not so bad after all ifyour peers are also experiencing the same or perhaps even worse challenges," she says.

"You'll also get the opportunity to experience some empathy, while realizing that you are not inthis IT world alone," she adds. "And who knows, you might even find another opportunity that isless stressful than the one you are in now! "

Many CIOs feel that their budgets are stretched to the limit by the challenges of keeping existingsystems running -- leaving nothing for new projects to support changing needs as the business

evolve.

But Geoff Webb, a vice president of global software company Micro Focus , says newapproaches to application re-use, and a better understanding of the role of DevOps, mean youcan do much more with very little resources. "There are more and more ways to better leveragecurrent investment in core business applications and data to build the next generation ofbusiness services," he says.

As a CIO you have to come to terms with the fact that the rest of your business almost certainlydoesn't realize the complexity of your role as CIO — from managing both front- and back-officecustomers to keeping up with the ever-changing landscape of technology and service offerings.

So Kendra Von Esh says one way to reduce stress is to meet with colleagues frequently toinform them on progress, updates, and changes and to set overall expectations. "This willensure that your business is not surprised by changes, plus they will appreciate the regularupdates individually instead of at monthly or quarterly management update meetings," she says.

Cloud service providers often have vast experience and high levels of expertise runningcommodity software, so why not take advantage of cloud services whenever appropriate, saysVon Esh.

"Outsource the stressful parts of IT because hosting hardware, managed services and SaaSsolutions can help take the stress off of you and your staff and put it somewhere better, fasterand cheaper," she says. "Instead focus on revenue generating activities and how you can turnyour organization into a profit center rather than a cost center. "

It may sound obvious, but making sure you are working on the right things by prioritizing youractivities in line with your company's IT goals can go a long way to helping your life become lessstressful, says Cynthia Stoddard, CIO at data storage company NetApp.

She also advises against trying to be everywhere for everyone. "While it’s important to beavailable, don't instantly give people your attention unless it's absolutely crucial in your businessto offer an immediate human response. Instead, schedule time to answer email and returnphone calls. "

Steve Phillpott, CIO at hard drive manufacturer Western Digital Corporation , recommendstaking a break from technology for a few minutes every now and again rather than gritting yourteeth and ploughing on with your job without relent.

"Rather than allowing technology to cause you stress, know when to step away and recharge. Ifyou are tempted to check your email during this break, take an extra few seconds and ask ifrefreshing email for the umpteenth time will really make a difference," he says. "When you returnto technology, you will have renewed energy. "

Your team and your business will benefit if you are mentally and physically strong, and thatmeans taking a rest from it all now and again -- however indispensable you may feel you are.

That may take a little planning, but it's not impossible, says Cynthia Stoddard. "To ensure yourvacation is stress-free, create and communicate a straightforward plan for your team that setsexpectations and covers the 'what ifs' and 'must dos' while you’re out," she says.

2016-05-02 06:34 Paul Rubens www.itnews.com

52 Cavium Brings 64-Bit ARM Architecture to Network, Storage

SoCsThe company in the past has used the MIPS architecture in its Octeon chips, but now isexpanding its strategy to include the ARM-based Octeon TX SoCs.

Cavium officials more than a year ago embraced ARM's 64-bit architecture for its ThunderX line

of server processors. Now the vendor is doing thesame with its new line of Octeon TX chips forembedded products in such areas as networkingand storage.

The company on May 2 introduced the newportfolio of systems-on-a-chip (SoCs) thatcomprises four product families, all of which arebased on 64-bit ARMv8.1 cores. Cavium'sprevious Octeon were based on the MIPS64architecture. The MIPS products reportedly willcontinue being produced, with the new ARM-based SoCs expanding what Cavium can offer.

ARM designs low-power SoCs, and then licenses those designs to a broad array of partners,from Qualcomm and Samsung to Cavium, Applied Micro and Advanced Micro Devices. Thecompany's chip designs are found in most smartphones and tables, and for the past severalyears, ARM officials have been pushing to move up the ladder and get their architecture into thedata center.

Most of the attention to the effort has centered on servers, and vendors like Cavium, AppliedMicro, AMD, Qualcomm and others have either put ARM-based server SoCs on the market orare developing them. However, ARM officials have said they see a role for their low-powerdesigns in a wide range of data center systems, including networking and storage appliances.

According to Steve Klinger, general manager of Cavium's Infrastructure Processor Group, hiscompany's new product line is an example of what can be done with the ARM architecture.

"The wide range of products in the Octeon TX ARM 64-bit product line builds upon this success[of the company's MIPS Octeon SoCs] and expands the use of these products into control andembedded processing applications that leverage the fast-growing ARM ecosystem and breadthof open-source initiatives," Klinger said in a statement.

The Octeon TX portfolio includes four product families—the CN80XX and CN81XX (one to fourARMv8.1 ThunderX cores and up to 2MB of last-level cache) and CN82XX and CN83XX (eight24 cores, up to 8MB of last-level cache). The chips will enable Cavium to get into control planeapplications areas in networking and storage for enterprises, service providers and datacenters, they said. The chips' ability to run multiple concurrent data and control planes at thesame time will have application in a wide range of areas, from security and router appliances tosoftware-defined networking (SDN) and network-functions virtualization (NFV), service providercustomer-premises equipment (CPE), storage controllers and gateways for the Internet of things(IoT).

The network is under pressure from such trends as big data, mobility, the IoT, the cloud and themassive amounts of data mirrored across the cloud and enterprise, and there is growingdemand for them to become more scalable, agile, open and application-centric. The controlplane needs to be able to run commercial software distributions (such as Red Hat EnterpriseLinux, Canoncial and Jave SE) and open-source applications, such as OpenStack, OpenFlowand Quagga, Cavium officials said.

Businesses also want the data plane to simultaneously support of multiple high-performanceapplications for firewalls, content delivery, routing and traffic management, they said. There alsois increased demand for bandwidth and the growing security threats.

While the current MIPS-based SoCs are being used in data plane applications and the controlplane with embedded software, control plane applications that need a broader softwareecosystem have found it in the x86 architecture used by Intel and AMD. Businesses embracingopen, service-centric networks are looking for options that offer lower cost and a wideecosystem, which Cavium officials said the ARM architecture offers.

The new Octeon TX SoCs combine what the MIPS-based offerings do with the ecosystem,virtualization, open-source support and optimized ARMv8.1 CPU cores from the ThunderXportfolio. They also include integrated Cavium's NitroX V security processors.

The SoCs with one to four cores will begin sampling this quarter, while those with eight to 24cores will sample starting in the third quarter.

2016-05-02 23:58 Jeffrey Burt www.eweek.com

53 Microsoft Restricts Cortana to Edge and Bing to Protect

Windows 10DAILY VIDEO: Microsoft limits Cortana to Edgeand Bing on Windows 10; U. S. risks losing edgein HPC, supercomputing, report says; Pentagonbug bounty program attracts strong hacker interest;and there's more.

Latest Videos

Sponsored Videos

Comcast Diversifies With $3.8 BillionDreamWorks Acquisition

DAILY VIDEO: Comcast is buying DreamWorksAnimation for $3.8 billion as it expands its reach;...

Apple Reports First Drop in Revenue Since 2003

DAILY VIDEO: Apple Q2 revenue falls 13% marking first sales decline since 2003; AT&T sees...Intel Refocusing Business on Chips for Cloud, IoT Systems: Krzanich

DAILY VIDEO: Intel CEO Krzanich outlines his company's strategy around the cloud and IoT;battery...

Red Hat OpenStack Scores Verizon, NASA as Major Customers

DAILY VIDEO: Verizon and NASA double down on Red Hat OpenStack; Apple's electric carproject won't...

Apple Online Services in China Shut Down by Government: Report

DAILY VIDEO: Chinese government shuts down Apple online services: report; Skype UWPmakes group calls...

Google Hit With EU Antitrust Charges Relating to Android Dominance

DAILY VIDEO: EU slaps Google with new anti-competition charges; shortened URLs make filesharing less...

Red Hat Improves Cloud Manageability With OpenStack Platform 8

DAILY VIDEO: Red Hat OpenStack Platform 8 improves cloud manageability; Apple settles a2012 Siri...

Apple Improves MacBooks' Graphics Performance, Flash Storage Speed

DAILY VIDEO: Apple MacBooks get faster processors, increased battery life; IBM extends itscloud...

Worldwide iPhone Shipments Plunge 43.8% in Q1, Market Report Finds

DAILY VIDEO: Global iPhone shipments down 43.8% in Q1, report finds; Microsoft Edge userscan now...

Intel to Announce Significant Job Cuts in April: Reports

DAILY VIDEO: Intel reportedly preparing for significant job cuts; a media probe revealsBlackBerry...

Intel Processors, Storage Enhancements Set New Dell Servers Apart

Dell’s latest Intel-based PowerEdge servers bring new levels of operational efficiency and...

Dell PowerEdge R630: Incredible Density Across a Range of Resources

The Dell PowerEdge R630 is a mainstream 2S/1U rack server that delivers incredible densityacross a...

Save on Operating Costs for Scale-Out Workloads

With the introduction of the Dell PowerEdge FM 120x4, Dell and Intel are bringing to market aserver...

Dell PowerEdge R730xd: Storage Density for Clouds, Big Data and More

The Dell PowerEdge R730xd, also based on Intel Xeon processors, is one of the world'sdensest...

Dell PowerEdge T630: Versatility for ROBO Environments and More

The Dell PowerEdge T630 is a mainstream 2S/5U rack-mount tower server with a versatile mixof...

Introduction to the 13th Generation Dell PowerEdge Servers video

Dell's latest generation of Intel-based PowerEdge servers has the power and flexibility to solveall...

Meet Some of the 13th Generation Dell PowerEdge Servers video

Dell’s latest Intel-based PowerEdge servers bring new levels of operational efficiency and...

Management Features of the 13th Generation Dell PowerEdge Servers video

Today's businesses need to innovate to compete. If your IT talent is spending too much time...

Innovative Features in the 13th Generation Dell PowerEdge Servers video

Dell PowerEdge servers powered by Intel processors include a number of innovative featuresdesigned...

Virtualization, Convergence and Cloud with Dell PowerEdge Servers video

Agility is a competitive edge that Dell's PowerEdge servers can deliver thanks to dense,storage...

Read more about the stories in today's news:

Microsoft Limits Cortana to Edge and Bing on Windows 10

U. S. Risks Losing Edge in HPC, Supercomputing, Report Says

Pentagon Bug Bounty Program Attracts Strong Hacker Interest

Malware Posing as Legitimate Apps on Google Play, Security Firm Warns

Today's topics include Microsoft's limitation of its Cortana virtual assistant technology to Edge

and Bing on Windows 10, the United States' plan to accelerate its high-performance computingefforts, the success of the Pentagon's bug bounty program and PhishLabs' discovery of malwareposing as legitimate apps on Google Play.

Cortana, Microsoft's virtual assistant technology included with the Windows 10 operatingsystem, is being reined in, the company announced April 28. As the Windows 10 user base hasgrown—270 million devices are running the OS at last count—Microsoft has discovered thatCortana has been taken in unintended directions, resulting in what the company claims is anunreliable user experience.

"Some software programs circumvent the design of Windows 10 and redirect you to searchproviders that were not designed to work with Cortana," said Ryan Gavin, general manager ofMicrosoft Search and Cortana. In particular, they can interrupt some of Cortana's taskcompletion and personalized search capabilities, he said. In response, Microsoft is lockingdown the Cortana search experience. Now, Cortana will only display Bing search results in theMicrosoft Edge browser.

Last year, President Obama issued an executive order aimed at accelerating the developmentof high-performance computing systems in the United States. The executive order created theNational Strategic Computing Initiative to coordinate federal government efforts and those ofpublic research institutions and the private sector to create a comprehensive, long-term strategyfor ensuring that the United States retains its six-decade lead in research and development ofHPC systems.

However, according to a recent report, the United States' lead in the space is not assured, andother regions and countries—in particular, China—are making concerted efforts to expand theircapabilities in the design, development and manufacturing of supercomputers and thecomponents that make up the systems.

"The United States currently leads in HPC adoption, deployment, and development, but its futureleadership position is not guaranteed unless it makes sustained efforts and commitments tomaintain a robust HPC ecosystem," the Information Technology and Innovation Foundationreported.

The Pentagon's bug bounty program hit its midway point this past week, and already theinitiative is, in some ways, a success. More than 500 security researchers and hackers haveundergone background checks and begun to take part in the search for security flaws, accordingto HackerOne, the company managing the $150,000 program.

The "Hack the Pentagon" pilot, announced in March, is the first federal government program touse a private-sector crowdsourcing service to facilitate the search for security flaws ingovernment systems. While neither the Pentagon nor HackerOne has disclosed any of theresults so far, Alex Rice, chief technology officer and co-founder of vulnerability-programmanagement service HackerOne, stressed that it would be "an extreme statistical outlier" ifnone of the researchers found a significant vulnerability.

PhishLabs, a company that provides anti-phishing services, said it has discovered 11 maliciousapplications disguised as mobile apps for popular online payment services on Google's officialGoogle Play store since the beginning of this year. The applications purport to give usersaccess to their online payment accounts from their mobile devices, PhishLabs security analystJoshua Shilko said in a blog post.

However, in reality, the only functionality the apps have is to collect the user's log-on credentialsand personal data and to send that to a remote command and control server belonging to themalware authors, Shilko said. PhishLabs did not identify the 11 payment brands whose appswere spoofed and uploaded to Google Play.

2016-05-02 22:49 eWEEK Staff www.eweek.com

54

54 Talari SD-WAN Technology Now Supports Microsoft Azure,Hyper-V

The company's virtual appliances already workedwith VMware and AWS, but now will also supportMicrosoft's cloud and virtualization platforms.

Talari Networks is now including Microsoft's cloudand virtualization technologies among theplatforms the company's software-defined WANproducts will support.

Company officials announced that a new virtualappliance, the VT800, will support the MicrosoftAzure and Hyper-V environments. Prior to theVT800, Talari offered virtual appliances that

supported VMware's ESX virtualization technology and integration with Amazon Web Services'(AWS) cloud technologies. Now customers with Microsoft infrastructures can offer Talari'ssoftware-defined WAN (SD-WAN) capabilities natively in their environments.

The networking space is continuing to use cloud- and virtualization-based services in the WAN,and Talari needs to be able to support all of the leading technologies, according to Presidentand COO John Dickey.

"Talari has always focused on offering customers a high degree of flexibility when it comes toacquiring and deploying an SD-WAN solution," Dickey said in a statement, adding that thevendor will continue to expand its SD-WAN deployment options. "Our work with Microsoft,Amazon and VMware as delivery options for the VT800 are the latest milestones on our journeyto bring a comprehensive, partner integrated SD-WAN solution to market. "

Talari is one in a growing number of vendors in the nascent SD-WAN market , a fast-rising partof a rapidly changing enterprise networking space. SD-WANs—part of the larger networkvirtualization move in the industry—come as enterprise and service providers are increasinglyusing the cloud to deliver applications and services, their workers are becoming more mobile,the Internet of things (IoT) is growing and the number of mobile devices connecting to thenetwork is increasing.

When traffic from the branch went to the data center, connectivity options like Multiprotocol LabelSwitching (MPLS) was a good fit. But now, with more unstructured data and more traffic beingmobile and coming from the cloud, WANs need to be more scalable, programmable andaffordable, and connected directly to the cloud. SD-WAN technologies offer a complement toMPLS.

The market will grow quickly over the next several years. Gartner analysts expect the number ofenterprises adopting SD-WAN technologies to increase from about 1 percent now to 30 percentby the end of 2019. IDC analysts are forecasting that the market will grow from less than $225million last year to more than $6 billion by 2020.

Customers have a lot of options to sort through, with almost two dozen vendors offering SD-WAN products. That includes established players like Cisco Systems, pure-play companies likeTalari, VeloCloud, CloudGenix and Glue Networks, and vendors like Riverbed Technology—which last month introduced its SteelConnect SD-WAN platform —and Silver Peak Networks,which have made the move from the WAN optimization space.

Talari officials have said their company has the advantage of having been in the space foralmost a decade, even before the term "SD-WAN" came into use. That enables the vendor toalready have a large mix of physical and virtual appliances and assorted software assets on themarket, and expanding their support of Microsoft technologies is a continuation of the effort togrow its portfolio.

The Talari VT800 is available now from Talari and its channel partners. It supports performancelevels of 20 Mb/s, 40 Mb/s, 100 Mb/s and 200 Mb/s, officials said.

2016-05-02 23:05 Jeffrey Burt www.eweek.com

Total 54 articles.

Created at 2016-05-03 06:02